INSECTS INJURIOUS TO SUGAR CANE. 
5 
hard cane. Mr. F. Dumartrait found several of the beetles working in 
stubble upon Mr. Swamsteadt’s plantation on March 17, this being their 
first noticed appearance in this season. In previous years, however, the 
presence of the beetles was first indicated by the withering of the top 
section — the bud leaves of the cane — after it was well up. These leaves 
finally died entirely, and with but slight effort the section could be 
pulled out. Such stalks, upon examination, showed the beetles in 
greater or less numbers below ground, burrowing to the center, iu many 
cases being entirely concealed within the stalk, in others with only the 
head and thorax buried. So abundant were they last season that no 
less than 57 were counted in an 18-iuch section of a row, and they often 
averaged 13 to a single stalk. In May and June they were observed 
flying very abundantly at night, and the testimony that they were 
greatly attracted by light seems to be irrefutable. They were reported 
to have left the caue entirely and to have disappeared iu late June by 
mauy planters, but upon Mr. Swamsteadt’s place they were found all 
through the summer, though the damage grew less as the cane grew 
larger and tougher. One specimen was found alive in seed-cane as late 
as December. 
In mauy fields where the beetles had not been remarkably numerous, 
after their disappearance iu June the cane suckered so well as almost 
to repair the damage done by them. In others, however, all caue was 
completely killed, and in some cases it was plowed under iu midsummer 
and the fields planted to corn. Iu such cases it is worthy of remark 
that the beetle destroyed the coru iu the same way that it had the cane. 
EARLY STAGES OF THE INSECT. 
It was considered as among the probabilities that the earlier stages 
of the beetle (of which the first is undoubtedly a white grub living- 
under ground upon living or decaying vegetation or in rotting wood) 
would be found at the roots of the caue, and our correspondents were 
requested to search for them there. As an answer to this request came 
a number of pupae found about cane roots, from several gentlemen, but 
these upon being reared to the adult state proved to be an allied Seara- 
baeid beetle ( Phyllophaga glabripennis, LeG.), which has never been 
known to injure cane. Mr. Howard made a most thorough search for 
the earlier stages of the beetle. Iu the earth at the roots of the cane 
two species of Scarabaeid larvae, or “ white grubs,” were found, but that 
they were the larvae of the cane beetle is very improbable, from the fact 
that the same two species were also found in Plaquemines Parish, where 
the beetle is unknown ; and that they injure the roots of the caue to any 
extent is also negatived by the fact that they were also found as abun- 
dantly in the soil of the “headlands” or “turn-rows,” and also in the 
lawn in front of the house, as well as in land grown to cow-pease last 
season. It is probable that these larvae will be found to be the young 
of the beetle mentioned above, Pkyllophaga glabripennis, and perhaps 
