33 
The present season, however, we were somewhat surprised to receive 
the same insect — Ligyrus rugiceps — from Mr. H. M. Houston, of Monroe^ 
Union County, North Caroliua, accompanied by a letter written June 
2, 1885, in which he stated that the insect was new to himself and his-, 
neighbors, and that it worked just under the surface of the ground, cut- 
ting into young corn with five or six leaves, working iu as far as the 
heart and killiug the center blades without injuring the outside ones; 
orwithout cutting the plant down. Fig. 1, Plate I, was drawn from 
specimens working in sugar-cane, but indicates precisely the method, 
of work in young coru. 
Mr. Houston gave no particulars as to the amount of damage being: 
done, and although he was written to for further information we did not 
hear from him again, and the inference is that, the beetles disappeared 
without doing much damage. It was so well shown in Louisiana that 
this species is capable of exceptional increase and corresponding injury 
under favorable circumstances that it is not at all improbable that we' 
have here the beginning of a serious damage to corn iu North Carolina- 
The life-history of this beetle is not known. The most careful search 
in the Louisiana sugar fields in 1881 failed to show a trace of the larvae- 
or pupae, and it was judged probable that they bred in the surrounding 
swamps. Until something definite is learned concerning the life-history- 
and larval habits, we can only recommend as a remedy the use of fires; 
and trap-lanterns iu the field, as the evidence of 1881 shows that th^ 
beetle is strongly attracted to light. 
The Corn-hoot Web-worm an old Pest in Indiana. — Professor* 
Forbes’ recent discovery of Grambus zeellus in Illinois, and his interest- 
ing article upon the species in the Fourteenth Eeport of the State Eim- 
tomologist of Illinois (1884), in which he treats it as an entirely uewr 
pest (and such it is for all that has been published concerning it), ren- 
ders the following letter from Mr. B. F. Ferris, of Sunman, Ind., re- 
ceived through our Indiana agent, Mr. Webster, of considerable interest n 
“In the Indiana Farmer , of this date, I notice a communication from 
yourself in regard to a ‘ new corn pest,’ and asking for information in 
regard to them. They are not a new pest to me by any means. My 
first experience with them was about thirty years ago. I had broken 
up a field of 17 acres of sod, and planted it on the 1st of May in as fine 
condition as I ever had a sod. Almost every hill came up, and I would 
not have paid a very high premium to have been insured 50 bushels of 
corn to the acre. But the corn was not more than well up before I no- 
ticed that the cut-worms, as I thought, were cutting it off. Upon ex- 
amination, however, I discovered that they were not our common cut- 
worms, but a small dark-colored worm that enveloped itself in a slight 
web, just as you have described them, and for want of a name I called 
them ‘ web-worms,’ and they are known by that name in this neighbor- 
hood at this time. As a result, they entirely destroyed my field of 
corn, with the exception of about an acre or so at each end of the field, 
17334-No. 12 3 
