18 
Just before pupating, the larva becomes very much shortened and 
thickened, assuming more the form of a common grub. The ab¬ 
dominal segments now become much more distinctly marked, and 
the head takes a vertical [position. The length in this, which may 
be called the semi-pupa stage, is only about one-fifth of an inch, 
and the greatest breadth .045 of an inch. The body now tapers 
more posteriorly than ^.before, ;the last two segments being con¬ 
spicuously narrower than the preceding. In other respects the larva 
remains unchanged. 
Egg — The egg is of a dirty white 
color and very minute, .025 of an 
inch in length, and .015 of an inch 
wide; narrower at one end than at 
Fig. 4. Egg of Fiabrotiea longicornis. 
Under the microscope the surface is 
seen to be thickly dotted with min¬ 
ute hexagonal pits, (about twenty in 
its entire length,) and under a higher 
power the bottom of each of these 
Sayr^Magnified so diameters. pits exhibits still more minute de¬ 
pressions, seven or eight to each reticulation. 
The only objects which I have noticed in the ground about the 
roots of corn, which are likely to be mistaken for the corn root- 
worm, are very young earth-worms, the larva or grubs of small 
gnats’and other flies, and young wire-worms. A careful examina¬ 
tion will readily distinguish the first two of these by the fact that 
they are entirely destitute of legs, while, as already remarked, the 
root-worm has three pairs of jointed legs just back of the head. 
In this respect it agrees with the young wire-worms, which are 
(also like the root-worm) 'destitute of appendages to the other seg¬ 
ments of the body. Their crust is, however, firmer than that of the 
latter species, the head is longer, flatter and thinner; the body 
also usually somewhat flattened, and the last segment commonly 
either notched or variously toothed. 
LIFE HISTORY. 
Larva. _The time of the first appearance of the larva in the 
ground—the time, that is, when the eggs begin to hatch—is not yet 
exactly known, as the worms have not been seen until the effect of 
their work upon the corn has attracted attention to them. 
A letter from Dr. Boardman (23d of October, 1882) says: “The 
earliest date on which I have found the larva is about the 10th of , 
June; but I think they would have been found earlier had search 
been instituted. I did not look for them until I began to notice the I 
change in the young corn.” Several farmers who had suffered from ■ 
the work of the worms, both in DeKalb and Mason counties, spoke 
of noticing spots in the field where the corn had ceased to grow 
while they were cultivating it; and as the plowing of the crop is 1 1 
nearly all done between the 10th of May and the 20th of July, the 1 
visible work of the worms probably begins in June. A correspond- ;l 
ent of the Western Rural, writing from Warren county, says that 
