CORN GROUND-BEETLE. 
47 
drawing in the juices than by biting it through. When about to turn 
to pupa they are stated to make long burrows from six inches to two 
feet in the ground with a cell at the end, in which they turn to the 
pupal or chrysalis-state, from which the beetle comes out (in about 
three or four weeks) about the beginning of July. The beetle is of the 
size and appearance figured, and of a black or blackish-brown colour.* 
Later on further reports were sent of the damage caused by the 
same kind of grub. 
At the beginning of April, Mr. W. S. Reading forwarded specimens 
from Shirley, Ringwood, Hants, as samples of a kind that was de¬ 
stroying the Wheat-crop in that neighbourhood. He mentioned:— 
“ It appears to eat the stalk away down to the root, leaving nothing 
save a blade here and there. One farmer has ploughed up about 
twelve acrss ; another has some acres that are eaten pretty bare, but 
he notices this morning that a good many of the roots are putting up 
new shoots, so he has decided to let it remain awhile.” 
A few days later, Mr. Reading wrote further, mentioning that his 
neighbour thought that “ he would have done well to have dressed the 
land about Christmas-time, when he first noticed the injury the grub 
was doing”; and that at the time it had disappeared. 
At the above date,—that is, April 9th,—a communication was also 
sent me from Akenliam, near Ipswich, by Mr. J. A. Smith, who 
mentioned that the Wheat in his neighbourhood was going off terribly 
where it succeeded Clover and Rye-grass, but not after Peas and 
Beans. Specimens of millepedes, and of various insects in grub-state, 
were sent accompanying, and amongst these were grubs of the same 
kind as those above alluded to (that is, apparently, of Z. gibbus ), one 
of these being more advanced in growth than any previously forwarded; 
and in his notes Mr. J. A. Smith said that “ the Wheat seems worried 
to death” not cut off absolutely. This remark is of considerable 
importance, as the crushing or chewing rather than biting off of the 
plant is one of the characteristics of the attack of the Z. gibbus grub. 
From the different observations sent in, it is plain that much 
damage was done in various localities by the grub of a ground-beetle, 
of a kind which had not previously been noticed as destructive; but 
from the different methods of attack reported, and also the different 
kinds of pests sent accompanying, I do not attribute the whole of the 
damage to this special grub. 
But whether it was the Com Ground-beetle grub (as is possible), or 
the grub of another kind of ground-beetle not yet described, probably 
* The above description is from Vincent Kollar’s work on ‘ Inj. Insects,’ Eng. 
trans., pp. 88—90. Those who wish to study the subject at length will find it 
excellently treated on in the ‘ Praktische Insekten Kunde ’ of Dr. E. L. Taschenberg, 
pt. ii., pp. 2—7, with minute description of larva. 
