158 
grain, and causing thus a partial blasting of the ear. They 
often eat the pollen of smartweed and ragweed among the corn, 
and outside the fields are very abundant upon thistle blossoms, 
and likewise upon heads of red clover, the pollen and petals of 
which they feed upon. By Professor French, of Carbondale, Ill., 
they are said sometimes to infest the bean plant; Dr. Board- 
man, of Stark county, reported them as abundant on cucum¬ 
ber and squash vines, and we have repeatedly seen them late 
in the year (October 11 to December 16) gnawing into ripe 
pumpkins in the field, eating through the outer hard coat, and 
burying themselves in the pulp to a depth of nearly half an 
inch. We have found them feeding on flow T ers of Helianthus, 
goldenrod, and other Compositse, and on the pollen of sorghum 
and of squash; and Professor Webster has seen them on the 
blossoms of the cotton plant. A farmer in DeKalb county 
asserts that they eat the pulp of apples where the skin has 
been broken from some other cause, enlarging such injuries so 
as seriously to damage the fruit. This same fact was reported 
to me some years ago from Grundy county, by Mr. 0. B. 
Galusha, theu Secretary of the State Horticultural Society, thin- 
skinned apples apparently suffering worst and, according'to the 
judgment of my informant, being thus injured without the 
assistance of other insects. They have been repeatedly detected 
by us beneath the husks of ears of corn, where the tips had 
been exposed or injured by birds or grasshoppers, feeding here 
on the broken grains. In one instance the beetle had appar¬ 
ently made its way through the husk itself, and was feeding 
upon the soft grains beneath. By Professor Burrill, of the Uni¬ 
versity of Illinois, it was found in 1889 (September 30) feeding 
upon a fungus belonging to the genus Phallus; and I demon¬ 
strated by dissections in 1882 the fact that it sometimes feeds 
largely on the smaller fungi—blights, rusts, etc.* 
LIFE HISTORY. 
This species is single-brooded, as far as known, although a 
few beetles may occasionally linger late in open winters,—to 
December 16 of the present year (1892) for example,—and as a 
rare exception may even pass the winter alive. The species 
hibernates almost invariably as an egg in the earth.f As a 
rule, which is, so far as known, practically without exception, 
these eggs are deposited in fields of corn and hatch there the 
following spring—at just what date has not been precisely as¬ 
certained. The larvae have first been detected in Central Illinois 
June 10. They were found by me less than half grown near 
Polo, in Northern Illinois, June 14, 1883. As the beetle was 
* Twelfth Rep. State Ent. Ill., p. 23. 
, J,JA a , V xJ n m X °KV? e collection two specimens (one male and one female) obtained March 
14,1883, at Normal, Illinois, with a quantity of miscellaneous insects collected from their 
hibernating quarters. On the other hand, beetles collected from pumpkins at Urbana, No¬ 
vember 2,18!>2, and placed in breeding cages with pieces of pumpkin as food, had died in 
large numbers by November 20; a very few were still alive December 4; two remained 
December 17; but December 28 all were dead. 
