24 
Careful search for them was made at Normal at this same date m 
all situations in the corn-fields, but without success. None were 
found upon the stalks nor roots nor in the ground about them, nor 
yet anywhere in connection with the roots of ragweed and smart- 
weed abundant in the field; and a similar search was repeated 
later with the same results. On the 18th of October, however, large 
numbers of small dirty-white eggs were found by my assistant, Mr. 
F. M. Webster, at Normal, in the ground not far from the bases of 
the hills, at depths varying from one to four or five inches, both 
where the corn was still standing and where the stalks had been 
cut for fodder. A critical comparison under the microscope of these 
eggs with those obtained by the dissection of a gravid female of 
Diabrotica, was sufficient to' demonstrate their identity,—a conclu¬ 
sion confirmed by their number, situation, and all the circumstances 
of the find. On the 20th of the same month they were found 
independently in the same situation by Dr. Boardman, at Elmira, 
(as reported in his letter of the *z3d) and frequent search at later 
periods showed them by hundreds in every held which had been 
infested by the beetle. In several cases, as already remarked, the 
exhausted female was found in the ground in the midst of clusters 
of eggs. From three or four to eight or ten were usually found 
together, not in actual contact with each other, but scattered through 
a space of about half an inch in diameter. Most of the eggs were 
within an inch of the surface, but in some instances the female had 
penetrated to a depth of about six inches. They were not contained 
in any cell or special cavity, but were scattered through the ground, 
entirely unprotected. A most careful examination, many times 
repeated, of the earth between the rows, and of the roots of all the 
weeds growing in the field, failed to discover so much as a single 
egg outside a space a few inches across, around each hill. A simi¬ 
lar careful search of the roots of thistles, ragweed, and goldenrod 
outside the fields, upon the flowers of which the beetles were feed¬ 
ing in great numbers, failed likewise to discover the eggs; neither 
was there any evidence in the roots of these plants, either in the 
corn-fields or elsewhere, that they had been infested by the larvae, j 
In short, not the slightest indication was found that the beetle 
breeds anywhere except in fields of corn. It is very probable that 
a feAV develop in other situations; but the number seems to be so 
small as to defy discovery, except by accident. A remarkable excep¬ 
tion to this statement, not invalidating, however, its general correct¬ 
ness, was reported to me from Stark county. A field of oats had 
lodged so badly as to be unfit for harvesting, and consequently grew 
up in the fall to a dense mat of young oats, about six inches high. 
This ground was plowed the following spring and planted to corn, 
with the surprising result that the crop was almost ruined by the 
corn root-worm. It is probable that the abundance of fresh and 
tender vegetation in this field at a time when food for the adult 
Diabrotica was becoming scarce in the corn-fields adjacent, served - 
to attract here large numbers of the beetles before their eggs were 
all deposited; and that the ground thus became stocked with eggs 
in the fall. 
From the bodies of the females collected on the 7th of Septem¬ 
ber, eggs were obtained of nearly full size, as many as fifty in num- 
