THE CORN BILL BUGS. 
(Sphenophokus sp.) 
Family Calandridce. Older Coleoptera. 
(Plates I., II., and III.) 
The snout beetles of the genus Sphenopliorus (popularly knowi 
to some extent as “bill bugs”) are gradually rising to prominent 
as injurious insects,—corn especially suffering from them a senou 
and often fatal injury which has long been known although bu 
little understood; and as the life histories and habits of the van 
ous species are apparently very similar, . others than those not 
known to injure agricultural products will probably be added t 
the list of noxious species. The essential facts concerning non 
of these beetles are yet known in full, and a summary of existin; 
knowledge, new and old, which shall serve as a guide to furthe 
observation, is undoubtedly a desideratum. 
The crops certainly more or less subject to the attacks of thes 
beetles are corn, wheat, oats, rye, timothy, and millet; and th 
species found addicted to these injuries are eight in number; viz. 
pertiuax , vobustus , parvulus , cariosus , and sculptilis , previousl 
reported, and ochreus ,* placidus, and scoparius , whose habits ar 
here for the first time described in entomological literature. 
* An item to the following effect appeared in various leading newspapers of the Mississip 
Valley, and in some eastern publications, in June and July, 1888: 
“The State Entomologist, Prof. S. A. Forbes, reports that he lias discovered in the swamp lan 
now heino- rapidly drained and brought under cultivation, a destructive attack on corn hj amat 
insectmiof before recognized as injurious,—one of the snout beetles or “bill hugs” (Sphenophor 
ochreus), of whose habits or history nothing has been hitherto ascertained. 
It now appears, however, that this insect feeds commonly on a large club rush (Scm 
and the common reed (Phragmites communis )plants which grow abundantlj'mtheloii estniars 
prairies,—and attacks corn when planted on ground where these grasses have been plowed up. 
The beetle is about half an inch long, clay-colored, and hears a long snout or proboscis, at t 
end of which is a pair of minute jaws. This snout it thrusts into the stalk of corn or stemi of gra 
noon which it is feeding, chewing and swallowing the soft internal tissues of the plant. V ho e 
li covZ have thus teen'destroyed*’two or three times in succession. The injury has not yet cease 
as the beetles are hut just preparing to breed, and farmers have consequently h^en compelled 
abandon their corn and sow the ground to some later crop-such as millet or flax-supposed not 
he liable to injury by this beetle. 
The habits of other beetles of its kind indicate that this species may succeed in breed g 
stalks of corn, in which case it is liable to spread from its present limited localities to co 
laro-e It should receive, consequently, the closest and most intelligent attention of ento • 
anffarmers It has not yet been found seriously affecting corn the second year afterjraw, and 
worst injuries can consequently be prevented by planting ground hearing reeds and lar B e n s , 
the first year, to some other crop than corn.” 
