4 BULLETIN 1426, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
knowledge of its life history. He disagreed with Miller as to the dam-— 
age caused by the species and expressed the opinion that red clover 
under the system of culture in that region died out from natural 
causes in the third year, and that the root borer attacked only dying 
plants, as was the habit of its near relatives which attacked injured 
or dying trees. Bach (/) in 1849 confirmed the earlier observa- 
tions of the two other writers as to the true host plant of the 
species. 
In spite of these observations some controversy arose as to the 
true host of the species.2 In 1869 T. Algernon Chapman (6) gave 
an interesting account of the occurrence, habits, and partial life 
history of what he determined as Marsham’s species on furze (Ulex 
europaeus) and Scotch broom (Cytisus scoparius). He noted that 
usually only large stems of furze or Scotch broom were attacked; 
sticks which had been cut down were rarely attacked, but living 
stumps and stems of plants dying of age were often infested. He 
recorded the species as associated with Phloeophthorus rhododactylus. 
According to L¢évendal (29, p. 118), Nérdlinger, in September, 1850, 
found larve, pupe, and adults of Hylesinus trifolit inside the thick- 
est roots of 2 or 3 year-old red clover; but the plants, though appar- 
ently infested during the previous year, showed no sign of unhealthi- 
ness. In the clover the egg galleries were’not regular, but Nérdlinger 
also found the species breeding in arm-thick stems of Cytisus (Spar- 
tuum) scoparius in September, 1855, at la Teste, near Bordeaux. In 
these shrubs the egg galleries were two-armed and horizontal, and 
had furrowed both the bark and the outer part of the wood. In 1876 
Perris (34, p. 175), stated that trifolii was undoubtedly a misnomer 
and that he had never found the species on clover. Bedel (2) cor- 
rected this statement in the same year and named three hosts of the 
species (H. trifoliv) belonging to three different genera of papiliona- 
ceous Soe Of these, Trifolium pratense was the preferred host 
near Paris, as in Germany. It was also found on (Sarothamnus) 
Cytisus scoparius in living stems of unusual size in Brittany, in com- 
pany with a Phloeophthorus. Bedel also stated that he had found the 
insect on Ononis natriz, in an old woody root exposed on the side of 
a bank at Belmont. Cecconi (45, p. 164) in 1899 described galleries 
of what were determined as H. trifolii Miiller in stems of Cytisus 
alpinus weakened by frost. Del Guercio (16, p. 268) reported in 1915 
that red clover was damaged in Tuscany, and also noted the occur- 
rence of the species (H. trifolii Miiller) on Cytisus laburnum, but 
stated that he considered the individuals on C. laburnum to be a 
different biological race. Marchal (30, p. 9) reported injury to clover 
in the Gironde in 1913, and Wahl and Miiller (44, p. 35) reported 
injury to red clover, probably by this species, in Baden in the same 
year. 
AMERICA 
The clover root borer is believed by all American autho cs to 
have been introduced from Europe. It was not noticed b Ameri- 
can entomologists as a pest until 1878, when Riley’s (37) a count of 
the insect in western N ew York was prepared. In all probability 
the insect had been present for many years. Henry (1/9) reported 
5 Some of this confusion may have been caused by failure to recognize the species afterwards described 
es a fankhauseri Reitter, but for reasons already stated the writer hesitates to disregard all of these 
records. 
