. Annual report. 1st-12th, 1867-1878. Geology. 770 KEPOKT UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. The Striped Squash-Beetle, Biabrotica vittata Fabricius (Fig. 37).—Appearing on the squash pumpkin, cucumber, and melon vines as soon as the leaves are up, eating holes in the leaves and killing the young plant; a small yellow-striped beetle, whose larva is a long, slender grub, which bores in the roots in June and July. This universal pest is so familiar iu the Nortliern States as to scarcely need description. The beetle hibernates under leaves or in the crev- ices in the bark of trees or in appearing a
. Annual report. 1st-12th, 1867-1878. Geology. 770 KEPOKT UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. The Striped Squash-Beetle, Biabrotica vittata Fabricius (Fig. 37).—Appearing on the squash pumpkin, cucumber, and melon vines as soon as the leaves are up, eating holes in the leaves and killing the young plant; a small yellow-striped beetle, whose larva is a long, slender grub, which bores in the roots in June and July. This universal pest is so familiar iu the Nortliern States as to scarcely need description. The beetle hibernates under leaves or in the crev- ices in the bark of trees or in appearing among the earliest insects of spring, at the time that the shad-bush {Amelanchier canadensis) is in blossom, on the pollen of whose , flowers it feeds, afterward de- ^ c .^RN serting wild flowers for the Fig. 37.—Striped Squash-Beetle; a, larva; &, garden. As SOOn as the Seed- pupa c, adult; d, 12-spotted Deabrotica. leaves of the squash, pump- kin, melon, or cucumber are formed, and even before they appear above the surface of the soil, they devour them, and until the plant is about six inches high it is liable to be devoured by them. I take the follow- ing account in part from my "Guide to the Study of ; Dr. H. Shimer has given an account of the habits of this insect in its different stages. He states that the grub, in June and July, " eats the bark and often perforates and hollows out the lower part of the stem which is beneath the ground, and the upper portion of the root, and occasionally, when the supply below fails, we find them in the vine just above the ; It hibernates in the pupa state. "The larva arrives at maturity in about a month after the egg is laid; it remains in the pupa state about two weeks, and the beetle probably lives several days before depositing her eggs, so that one generation is in existence about two months, and we can only have two, never more than three, broods in one ; Dr. Shimer has foun
Size: 2940px × 850px
Photo credit: © Library Book Collection / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, bookpublishe, booksubjectgeology
