106 
The Bulletin 
rows of round or oblong holes running across the leaves. Frequently 
these rows of holes are found in the so-called seed leaf, indicating that 
the adults often attack corn as soon as it appears above ground. When 
young plants are attacked in this manner they never recover, but simply 
die. It is hard to arrive at a satisfactory estimate of the percentage 
of plants that are injured in this way, for in all of our experimental 
plats planted to test this phase of the problem we have had to deal 
with bad outbreaks of the Southern Corn Boot-Worm, and while the 
methods of attack of these two insects are entirely different, yet fre¬ 
quently the same plants are attacked by both insects and under such 
conditions it is impossible to say which insect was responsible for the 
death of the plant. 
After the plants have grown to some extent they are seldom killed 
outright by the adult com bill bugs (Fig. 64). Their growth, however, 
is much stunted if the adults attack it frequently; but the aduls do 
not seem to injure corn after it has started to grow to nearly the same 
extent that the larvae do. 
HIBERNATION 
The adult is the only stage that lias been found during the hiberna¬ 
tion period. Hibernating adults have been found in three situations: 
among the roots of cyperus grass, in the larval burrows in stalks of 
corn, and in the pupal cells in the ground among the corn roots. Many 
hibernating bill bugs have been found in the field during the past three 
winters, and of the number found fully 90 per cent have been in the 
pupal cells in the earth underneath the corn stubbles. A few beetles 
have been found among the roots of clumps of cyperus grass at Baleigh 
and a few have been found in cornstalks at Willard. Those that occur 
in pupal cells in the ground seem for the most part to be late maturing 
beetles, and are more common in late corn, and especially in late corn 
that has been retarded in its growth, as corn growing under trees and 
in poor soil and other like situations. 
T1 le adults in the pupal cells in the ground are apt to occur any¬ 
where among the roots, but they seem to be especially abundant directly 
beneath the tap-root. The former, perhaps, represent larvae that have 
developed among the roots, while the latter undoubtedly represent 
larvae that have developed in the stalk; for in practically every case 
where there are/ larval burrows in the stalks of late corn the adults 
will be found in pupal cells near the tap-root. On the other hand, 
farther away from the tap-root there are usually no evidences of larval 
burrows in the stalk. Most of the pupal cells in the ground are situated 
rather deep, usually an inch or two below the bottom of the cavity 
caused by pulling up the stubble's. In fact, it is very rarely that one 
finds a hibernating beetle by pulling up the corn stubbles, unless the 
beetle happens to be in the larval burrow in the cornstalk. In Feb¬ 
ruary, 1913, I pulled up over three hundred corn stubbles in a corn- 
