230 
Psyche 
[December 
renthesis were very common while H. corner gens were scarce 
enough to be almost rare. 
At the same truck farm, a large asparagus bed was heavily 
invested with Crioceris asparagi. These beetles hibernated early 
in such shelter as they could find: in the sod of the fencerows, 
hollow’ asparagus stalks thruout the bed, hollow weed stalks, in 
the burrows of the grape cane borer, smartweed borer, and even 
in company with a strawberry leaf roller larva in a folded straw- 
berry leaf. 
After Dec. 10th an exhaustive survey of the asparagus bed 
revealed an almost total mortality, only six beetles being revived 
when warmed out of several hundred collected. The six were hi- 
bernating in a hollow asparagus stalk. 
In the sod fencerow the beetles had hidden in the layers of 
decayed organic material found at the surface of the ground in 
most blue grass sod. but were never found in the ground. The 
first 12 or 14 inches of sod next to the asparagus sheltered the 
majority of the beetles that had thus wintered. As high as 83 
specimens were counted in an area one foot square. 
The asparagus beetles had not been observed to bore into a 
stalk, nor had any evidences of frass been seen in the stalks ex- 
amined. Beetles had entered, usually, by fche path of some pre- 
vious insect, or at a broken internode. 
A number of stalks in lots of 50 were examined to determine 
the number of beetles that had used such shelter, and in four 
lots the infestation ran 32%, 32%, 22%, and 52% with as high as 
46 specimens in a single stalk. 
Two species of Anthicidce, Anthicus cervinus Laf. and A. 
amoenus Casey, were often collected in company with the as- 
paragus beetles and always showed activity upon being disturbed. 
Sanderson (Journal of Economic Entomology, Vol. I, 1908, 
pp. 245-262) plots on a map of the United States a series of iso- 
therms showing the average annual-minimum temperatures and 
the relation between the northward limitation of certain forms 
and these isotherms. The average annual-minimum for central 
Iowa is - — 10°. The — 25° of the past winter is therefore an ex- 
ceptional drop for this locality. 
