114 
feeding steadily at the roots, and thus diminishing the yield 
without actually deadening any continuous area. It is only 
when through uninterrupted multiplication they become exces¬ 
sively abundant, or w T hen severe drouth checks the growth of 
vegetation, that brown patches may appear in midsummer, 
sometimes merging in areas of an acre or more over which the 
turf, loosened by a destruction of its roots, may be rolled up 
like a carpet. 
That they were original inhabitants of the wild prairie sod is 
shown by the common testimony of old settlers, and by Walsh 
in the ‘‘Practical Entomologist” (Yol. I., p. 60), where he re¬ 
ports that in 1845 he found white grubs eating off young corn 
when it was a foot in height, in a field broken from prairie land 
the preceding year. 
Patches of wheat, barley, and other small grains may be simi¬ 
larly killed, all underground parts of the plant being completely 
eaten up; but clover is scarcely ever damaged to any consider¬ 
able degree, and grubs are relatively rare in clover sod mixed 
with grass. Their injuries to potatoes have often been reported, 
and are generally well known, and they are among the worst 
insect enemies of the strawberry grower. In regions where the 
sugar beet is an important crop, they are among the chief in¬ 
jurious insects to be taken into account. Young larches and ever¬ 
greens are sometimes killed by them in the nursery rows, and 
probably every kind of delicately rooted shrub and of young 
fruit and forest tree is liable to destruction by them. 
No general list of their food plants has ever been prepared, 
and nothing whatever is knowm of preferences with respect to 
food among the different species of grubs. That they may live 
for a considerable period on earth alone is shown by Dr. Riley, 
who says that he has known the larvae of the common May 
beetle to feed for three months upon nothing but pure soil;* 
and Professor Perkins, of Vermont, has kept individuals of all 
ages alive for weeks, and sometimes for months, in sand more 
free from organic matter than the soil of any field fit for 
growing crops.t The remarkable fact that the grubs may eat 
locust eggs in the ground has been mentioned in the First Re¬ 
port of the U. S. Entomological Commission (p. 305). 
The beetles of the white grub feed most frequently on the leaves 
of various species of trees. Oak, hickory, ash, box elder, elm, 
chestnut, butternut, black walnut, basswood, hackberry, hazel, 
willow, black locust, mountain ash, tame and wild cherry, and 
pear are the species positively known by us, bj^ personal ob¬ 
servation, to be eaten by the adult beetles of various species; 
and apple, plum, Lombardy poplar, sweet gum (Liquidambar), 
maple, and birch may be added to the list on other authority. 
When a tree is much infested, the leaves are eaten entire except 
perhaps a stub of the petiole, or the petiole and a part of the 
* St. Louis “Globe-Democrat,” March 25,1876. 
+ Fifth Ann. Rep. Vermont Age. Exper. Station (1891), p. 151. 
