The Bulletin 
69- 
below ground, and again larvae have been found in the tap-root where 
the entire root had been reduced to a dry reddish brown pulp. In 
some cases it appeared to be due to lack of moisture in the soil, as 
in all cases where the larvae had been driven to feed above the ground 
the soil around the plant was very dry, whereas the stalk above ground 
was succulent and green. Whether this was the only factor is of 
course difficult to determine. 
The writer believes that eggs laid loosely in the ground hatch into 
larvae which feed externally on the roots and the stem below ground 
and do not enter the stalk. Some of these externally feeding larvae 
may be from eggs that were laid in the stalk, the larvae on hatching 
boring downward until they leave the tap-root, as it is not unusual to 
find stalks that larvae have deserted in this way. 
The larvae, of course, always do much more damage to stalks of corn 
than the adults. This is exactly contrary to popular belief, due to 
the fact that the adults are more or less exposed and are more or less 
familiar to most farmers in the corn bill bug sections of the State, 
whereas the larvae are hidden within the stalk and are not at all well 
known. 
HABITS OF THE LARWE 
Inasmuch as the larvae work either in the stalk or among the roots 
in the ground, their habits are rather hard to follow consecutively. 
The following notes are presented from a study of several hundred 
individuals collected in the field and from a more detailed study of the 
individuals reared in the laboratory. 
The majority of larvae seem to prefer to feed internally upon the 
tender growth just above the tap-root or in the tap-root itself. A 
considerable number of larvae are to be found feeding externally upon 
the roots or the stem below ground. The writer believes that the larvae 
that are feeding extenally are larvae that have hatched from eggs 
which have been dropped loosely, a habit adult females seem to have 
after they have laid a number of eggs in the same day. 
The larvae that hatch from eggs deposited in cavities burrow down¬ 
ward toward the center of the stalk, enlarging their tunnels as they 
proceed. When the stalk is young and tender they seem to consume 
practically everything in their tunnels as they come to it, but in the 
older stalks the larvae tear off large pieces, which are reduced to frass 
and left in the tunnel behind them. As the larva grows older it seems 
to tear off proportionally more and more of the stalk than it can 
devour, so that usually by the time it is ready to pupate the larval 
burrow is pretty well filled with fragments of stalk in the immediate 
vicinity of the larva, and it is from these fragments that the pupal 
cell is constructed. 
The larva is capable of comparatively rapid movements when dis¬ 
turbed, but normally it does not seem to move very far from the end 
