Florida Agricultural Experiment Station


 Life History.-The eggs are whitish, oval, prominently
ribbed, and about a twentieth of an inch in diameter. They are
scattered over the corn. Those from which the bud-worm
hatches are laid on the leaves; those of the ear-worm on the
silk. They hatch in 3 or 4 days.
 The caterpillars vary from a delicate pink to black. They
are marked with rather narrow longitudinal lines. They require
about 17 days for growth in summer, becoming 11 to 2 inches
long. The caterpillar then bores a hole in the side of the ear
or stalk and enters the ground to a depth of 2 to 5 inches where
it forms the pupa. Here it remains for a week or two in summer
or all winter if it is the last fall brood.
 The pupa lies in an earthen cell. It is about /4-inch long.
It is at first green in color but soon turns to a light brown. The
moth (fig. 80) which issues from this cocoon varies in color
from a dusky yellow to grayish and expands from 11/a to 2
inches. Unlike most moths it may fly in broad daylight, but
the eggs are usually laid at sunset.
 CARPOPHILUS
 If the husk is removed from an ear of corn in the milk by
any cause, such as a woodpecker in his hunt for a corn ear-
worm, it is at once attacked by these scavenger beetles, which
are also common in decaying fruits. The beetles are brown
and about 1/8 of an inch in length. Their wing-covers are so
short that they do not reach the end of the abdomen. The
beetles seem unable to penetrate the husk of an uninjured ear,
but very commonly get into the burrows made by the corn ear-
worm and cause further damage. They often breed among the
kernels which blacken and decay, thus spoiling many ears that
would otherwise be usable. The larvae are small, whitish, and
maggot-like. Control measures are obviously those which con-
trol the corn ear-worm.
 WIREWORMS, "DRILLWORMS"
 These long, slender, hard, wiry worms" are the larvae
of click-beetles. They feed below the surface of the ground on
the roots and stems of plants into which they often bore. The
infested plant is stunted, turns yellow and may die. The larvae
are particularly destructive to sprouting seed, eating the
inside.
 The adults are called click-beetles from their habit of
throwing themselves into the air with an audible click when