70 
At intervals the head is slowly and regularly rolled from side to 
side as if to pry apart the severed tissue, and when the soft in¬ 
terior substance of the plant is penetrated a pause is made to en¬ 
able the insect to devour the part thus brought within reach of 
its jaws. By moving forward and backward and twisting to the 
right and left, the beetle will often hollow T out a cavity beneath 
the surface much larger than the superficial injury would indicate. 
Ochreus (and possibly other species also) elongates the original 
slit by pulling the head strongly backward with the compressed 
beak inserted, thus using the latter to split the stem as a boy 
uses his knife to split a stick. In this wmy a slit an inch long 
may be made in the stalk of corn or head of cane, beneath which 
the softer parts will be completely eaten out. Our imprisoned 
beetles, confined with rapidly growing corn, left the lower part of 
the stalk, as it hardened, and fed at the tip of the plant, or 
searched out the forming ear, penetrated the husk, and gouged out 
the substance of the soft cob. The intestines of these beetles were 
well filled with the solid tissue of the plant, but I saw no evidence 
that they also suck the sap, although it is not, perhaps, im¬ 
possible.* 
The effect on the corn plant of such injuries as the above varies 
according to the size of the species and the number of the beetles. 
A small species may do little more than to leave a trace of its 
visit in the form of a series or two of oblong parallel holes across one 
or more of the leaves, each row resulting from a single thrust of the 
beak when the leaves were closely rolled together around. the sterc 
of the young plant; but the larger species, especially if severa. 
individuals attack the same plant, may completely kill the corn 01 
grass, or so rag and deform the young leaves that no ear is ma¬ 
tured. 
In Ford county, near Piper City, where the first crops wert 
being raised after the draining of the swamps, I found, late ir 
June, several fields which were finally being plowed up after twc 
or three times replanting; and even the millet sown after corr 
was attacked, in some places not more than twenty per cent, of i 
yield maturing. The perforation of so small a stem by so large * 
beetle cut the plant off within the sheath and killed it outright 
Fox-tail grass (Setaria) was injured in the same manner. 
S. scoparius is included among the probable enemies to con 
on the strength of an observation made by an assistant, Mr. H 
Garman, who found this beetle under ground, at the base of : 
stalk of corn in Logan county, June 16, 1885. 
S. placidus was repeatedly taken from stalks of corn, just be 
neath the surface of the ground, by another assistant, Mr. Johi 
Marten, July 7, 1888, and was also sent to me_ by Mr. Josepl 
Carter, from Bankin, Illinois, with the following letter, date( 
March 31, 1887: 
