The Bulletin 
11 
and never produce ears. A few stalks more favorably located will make 
a fair growth and will stand above their neighbors like giants among 
dwarfs. 
The very irregular growth of the stalks in the field is perhaps the 
best indication of the presence of the corn bill bug. Other indications 
are the rows of very regular holes across the leaves, and the presence 
of the adults clinging to the base of the stalk and the presence of the 
larvae in the stalks and among the roots. 
Figure 3. Field of corn, showing characteristic injury by Southern Corn Bill Bug. 
In fields examined in this State the writer has tried as far as possible 
to determine the relative amount of damage that has been caused by 
corn bill bugs under different conditions, and while no entirely satis¬ 
factory method has ever been devised for expressing the amount of 
damage caused under different conditions in different fields, he has as 
far as possible tried to express this in a rate per cent, basing his con¬ 
clusions upon a careful stalk-to-stalk examination of representative 
areas and also by a summary of the field as a whole after a careful 
survey. 
Heedless to say, a stalk-to-stalk inspection alone will not be an en¬ 
tirely satisfactory basis for estimating damage, for very frequently 
stalks are damaged so slightly by the adult beetles that the stalk will 
afterwards almost completely recover. This is especially true where 
the total number of beetles is small and the percentage of stalks dam¬ 
aged is relatively small. 
