AGRICULTURE NOTICE: Return or renew all Library Materials! The Minimum Fee for each Lost Book is $50.00. The person charging this material is responsible for its return to the library from which it was withdrawn on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for discipli- !*> nary action and may result in dismissal from the University. To renew call Telephone Center, 333-8400 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN L161 O-1096 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS Agricultural Experiment Station. URBANA, AUGUST, 1900. BULLETIN No. 60. THE ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. New enterprises, new difficulties; new crops, new insect enemies and old enemies in a new role. The recent introduction and rapid extension of sugar-beet culture in America have brought to general notice several insect species not before known as injurious, and have given a new food to others well known for their attacks on the older crops. The beet plant is very similar as food for insects to some of our commonest weeds, and hence it has attracted the prompt attention of several species which, if we have noticed them at all, we have hitherto regarded as our friends; and it has also served to give additional variety to the diet of several crop insects of somewhat general feeding habits. It has thus already recruited a large entomological following about one hundred and fifty species in America, if we put upon the list everything which has thys far been found to feed upon the beet in the field. Most of these, of course, can hardly be called injurious in the economic sense, but with our present knowledge of the subject about forty species may be definitely so classed. Furthermore, we may expect additions to this list from time to time, since the necessary concentration of beet culture in the neighborhood of factories and the consequent devotion of large areas to this crop year after year for an indefinite period give oppor- tunity for an extraordinary multiplication and a continuous maintenance (397) 398 BULLETIN NO. 60. of its insect enemies. Doubtless, also, many beet insects which in the short period since beet culture began in America have been present in small or moderate numbers only, will from time to time exhibit that tendency to extraordinary and alarming multiplication common among the injurious species generally. It must no,t be inferred, however, that the beet plant is especially liable to insect injury. On the contrary, taking the country at large, it is at present less subject to such damage than corn or wheat, cabbage or potatoes. It is a fact particularly favorable to this crop that the marketable part of the plant is but little subject to injury by insects, by far the greater part of the species which feed on it infesting only the leaf, and relatively few injuring the root. The critical period of insect injury to the beet is in the beginning of the season, while the plants are still small and slow of growth. There is at this time so little vegetation on the ground that a comparatively small number of insects may serve to lay the field completely bare; and poisons are often not available since a leaf-feeding insect may com- pletely devour the little beet while getting a fatal dose of poison for itself. The principal injurious groups are the leaf-miners, the web-worms, the cutworms, the woolly bears and several other leaf-eating caterpillars, the wireworms, the white grubs, the flea-beetles, the blister-beetles, the plant-bugs, the leaf-hoppers, the plant-lice, and the grasshoppers. The web-worms, the cutworms, the flea-beetles, the blister-beetles, the leaf- miners, and the root-lice have done the greater part of the mischief in the states beyond the Mississippi, but in Illinois the only considerable injury seen by us in 1898 and 1899 was that done by the pale striped flea-beetles, the grasshoppers, and the blister-beetles. Insect injuries to the underground part of the beet commonly take the form either of a cutting of the tap-root, an eating away of the smaller roots, or a burrowing or excavation of the mass of the beet itself. They are commonly due either to wireworms, to white grubs, or to the beetles of one of the muck-worms (Ligyrus gibbosus). More rarely root-lice seriously damage the plant in summer by sucking the sap from the roots. It is probable that larvse of some of the flea-beetles will also be found to infest the plant under ground. Injuries to the leaf may be done either by bugs with a sucking beak, or by beetles, grasshoppers, or insect larvre, with biting meuths. The former abstract the sap from the stem or the blade of the leaf, often making discolored spots, dwarfing the growth and^,pausing the leaf to curl, or even killing it completely. Beetles and their larvae, caterpillars, grasshoppers, and the like, commonly make holes in the leaf, the smaller insects small circular holes as a rule, and the larger ones either gnawing away the edge of the leaf, eating out irregular holes, or, if cutworms, cutting off the stalk near the ground, Small holes made in the young ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY Of THE SUGAR BEET. 399 growing blade may greatly enlarge as the plant expands, becoming longest in the direction of the most rapid growth. Certain maggots of flies (the leaf-miners) eat out the interior substance of the leaf in patches, leaving the cuticle unbroken. EXAMPLES OF INSECT INJURY TO THE.BEET. The first injury to the beet reported in America was a mining of the leaves by the maggots of certain flies in a New York vegetable garden, an injury sufficient to prevent the use of the leaves for "greens." Later, serious and extensive damage was done by these leaf-miners to fields of sugar beets in California. The leaf is penetrated by the insects, and the tissue is eaten out between the upper and lower layers of the cuticle, colorless blister-like spots being thus produced. Perhaps the most destructive of the beet insects in the West are the garden web-worms {Loxostege similalis and L. sticticalis^). The latter was in 1892 the chief depredator in the beet fields of Grand Island, Platte Center, and several other Nebraska localities, where many of the plants were entirely defoliated. .'ibe garden Mamestra {Mamestra trifolif], a caterpillar allied to the zebra-caterpillar of the cabbage, has been reported by Professor Lawrence Bruner, of Nebraska, to be quite common in his state, and is sometimes considerably injurious to the beet. Cutworms have been noticed wherever beets are raised. Bruner reports them in 1891 as occasionally quite destructive to the plant while it is small, continuing their injury more or less throughout the summer. They commonly cut off the leaf at or a little below the surface of the ground, but some of them merely feed upon the blades. In 1892 they almost entirely destroyed sugar beets growing upon two Experiment Station plats at Lincoln, Neb., on one of which only about twenty per cent, of a stand was obtained. It was noticed here that little injury was done on land plowed the preceding fall and a second time in spring. Osborn noticed cutworms in Iowa doing serious injury to young beets in 1891. The army-worm {Leucania unipuncta) has occasionally attacked the beet, with other vegetation; and grasshoppers are frequently respon- sible for a considerable injury in the latter half of the season. They are not especially fond of this plant, however, and rarely injure it seriously except when their numbers are excessive. The caterpillar known in the West as the army-cutworm {Chorizagrotis agrestis) de- stroyed beets, with many other plants, in Montana in 1897, traveling by night like the eastern army-worm, and collecting in masses in irrigation ditches to a depth of six to twelve inches. The western Laphygma or beet army-worm {Laphygma flavimaculata], related to the grass-worm of the East, almost completely defoliated hundreds of acres of beets in 40<3 BULLETIN NO. 60. Colorado in 1899. Several of the flea-beetles readily distinguished from other beetles infesting the beet by their leaping habit when alarmed seriously injure the leaves by riddling them with small holes. The worst of these is the pale-striped flea-beetle (Systetia tceniata), abundant in beet fields in Illinois in 1898 and 1899. Two insects hith- erto little noticed by the economic entomologist, and known locally as French bugs {Monoxia puncticollis and M. consputa), have made a serious attack upon this plant, the first of these species in New Mexico and the second on the Pacific coast especially in Oregon. The former sometimes riddles the leaves, leaving only a network of veins, and of course checking the growth of the plant or even killing it. The well-known blister-beetles of various species have infested beet fields with serious consequences in many places, especially in the northern Mississippi Valley. They are most destructive, as a rule, after a period of unusual abundance of grasshoppers, on the eggs of which their larvae feed. The muck beetle {Ligyrus~) has occasionally been somewhat injurious to beets over limited areas in western Nebraska, working underground and gnawing the beet from without, sometimes entirely imbedding itself in the root. White grubs and wirewor^ns are less injurious than might be supposed from their great numbers and general feeding habits, owing, no doubt, to the fact that beets are rarely planted after grass, in which these insects mainly breed. A root aphis {Pemphigus beta) sometimes does serious injury, frequently attributed by beet growers to the more active and conspicuous ants which live in its company. The most noticeable instance of this injury known to us was reported from La Grande, Oregon, where both the quantity and the quality of the crop were seriously affected in 1899. A considerable injury has been done by one of the green plant-bugs or stink-bugs {Lioderma} locally abundant from South Dakota to California and Mexico. PRINCIPAL PREVENTIVE AND REMEDIAL MEASURES. The more important measures of prevention of insect injury to the beet are clean culture and a suitable system of rotation. So many of the insect enemies of this plant depend largely upon certain common fleshy weeds, that the growth of these in or near a beet plantation is a menace to the crop. The red or spiny pigweeds {Amarantus), white pigweed or lamb's-quarters {Chenopodium albuni), purslane, and the cocklebur are the principal examples. Weeds of this description should not be allowed to gain any foothold or even to make a start in or about a beet field, for if they do they are likely to attract their special insects, which, when these weeds are destroyed, transfer their attentions to the beet, sometimes with highly destructive effect. Many beet insects pass the winter on the ground under the protection of fallen leaves and other ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 401 vegetable rubbish, while others hibernate in the earth of plowed fields. The raking and burning of vegetable trash in fall to destroy the winter harborage of injurious insects, and fall plowing to break up the earthen cells of underground species are consequently useful general measures of prevention. The preparation of the soil now commonly preferred by beet growers, that is, plowing thoroughly both in fal] and spring, is an important safeguard against insect injury, especially against cutworm attack. Beets should not be preceded on the same ground by any crop especially liable to breed and feed the more prominent beet insects. Thus a system of rotation in which beets follow upon grass would be highly objectionable, since some of the worst insect enemies of the beet the cutworms, the wireworms, and the white grubs, for example commonly breed in sod. Either oats or corn may precede the beet without objection from the entomologist, the choice to be made between these two on general agricultural principles. There is no direct remedy available for injuries to the underground part of the beet*, but injuries to the leaves may commonly be arrested by the use of one or the other of the ordinary insecticide sprays; kerosene for plant-lice, leaf-hoppers, and other insects which pierce the leaf with the beak and suck the sap, or one of the arsenical poisons for those which eat the leaf. Kerosene may be applied as an emulsion with soap- suds; or, more conveniently, as a mechanical mixture with water, thrown upon the plant by means of one of the special sprayers now constructed to deliver fixed proportions of water and kerosene intermingled in a very fine spray. The smooth surface of the beet leaf makes it difficult to apply fluid poisons successfully, since they are likely to run off, leaving no residue sufficient to serve as a fatal dose. This difficulty may probably be met by using either Bordeaux mixture or soap-suds instead of water as a medium for conveying arsenic or Paris green. In this case a quarter of a pound of Paris green and an equal quantity of lime should be kept thoroughly stirred up in the tank or barrel with fifty gallons of the Bordeaux mixture or the soap-suds, the latter of a strength to be de- termined by preliminary experiment. When the beets are small the arsenical poisons may probably be best applied, as advised by Professor Gillette, by mixing one part by weight of Paris green with twenty parts of flour and then dusting over the plants before sunrise on a dewy morning. This application may, if more convenient, be made while the leaves are moist from a recent shower. "To apply the poison," he says, "make a small cheese-cloth sack about five inches in diameter and ten inches deep. Fill it with the mixture of poison and flour and walk *In Europe, volatile poisons like bisulphide of carbon are sometimes applied underground, especially for the destruction of root-lice and wireworms; but this measure is doubtless too expensive of time and labor for the American beet-grower, especially as injuries by these insects may be mostly avoided here by a proper general management. 462 BULLETIN NO. 60. [August, along a row of plants shaking the sack over them. This can be done quite rapidly when one has learned how, and is economical of poison and does not require wheelbarrow or wagon to carry pump and tank. If a spray is used, apply either Paris green or London purple in the proportion of a pound to a hundred gallons of water and add two pounds of fresh lime for each pound of poison. The lime should be slaked and strained through a sack to take out lumps. Then use a nozzle that throws a fine spray, and do not continue the application in any place long enough so that the drops sprayed upon the leaves will run together and flow off, carrying the poison with them. " If white arsenic is used, prepare according to the following direc- tions: Put two pounds of white arsenic and eight pounds of sal-soda to- gether in a dish and boil for twenty minutes in two gallons of water, and keep as a concentrated solution. // is extremely poisonous and should be placed at once where there is no possibility that children or domestic animals can get it. Also, label it 'Poison' in large letters. Then, in each forty gallons of water, first slake four pounds of lime and then add slowly one quart of the concentrated solution while the whole is being stirred. The mixture is then ready for application, as in case of Paris green. The lime should be strained through a cloth to take out the lumps." * Cutworms may usually best be destroyed either by hand-picking, with lanterns at night, or by the use of poisoned baits. The most con- venient and effective of these is a bran mash or dry bran, poisoned with London purple or Paris green. For the preparation of the poisoned mash the insecticide should be thoroughly mixed with dry wheat bran a pound or two to twenty five pounds of bran is a suitable proportion with water enough, sweetened with molasses, to form a mash sufficiently stiff to be dipped out without dripping. This is distributed, a large table-spoonful in a place, along the row of plants, beginning while they are still very young. Dry bran is poisoned by first dampening the bran very slightly with sweetened water and adding the Paris green, one pound of the poison to fifty of bran, shaking it on a little at a time and stirring it in until the whole mass is evenly mixed. This poisoned mixture may be conveniently distributed by the use of a seed-drill, filling the seed box with poisoned bran and running lines of it close to the rows. As a comparatively crude but more rapid method, for use on a large scale, clover or fleshy weeds may be sprayed with Paris green, cut with a scythe or mowing machine, and pitched in small quantities from wheelbarrows or small wagons wherever desired. The piles of poisoned herbage should be placed at nightfall a few feet apart between the rows of plants. The blister-beetles can often be driven out of a field by whipping * Press Bull., No. 3 (May, 1900), Agr. Exper. Station, Col., pp. 2, 3. ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 403 or brushing the plants attacked by them, and once expelled they return slowly or not at all. The very common striped species is usually quite easily expelled in this way, but the margined blister-beetle is not so easily driven. The injuries of these beetles should be arrested, if prac- ticable, without destroying them, as in the larval stage they are ex- tremely useful enemies of grasshoppers. Indeed they are commonly numerous enough to be injurious only when grasshoppers are themselves abundant or have been so very recently. The blister-beetles are also subject to poisoning by Paris-green sprays. Mechanical measures for the coilection and destruction of leaf-eating insects are sometimes resorted to in Europe, but have not as yet become necessary in this country. These general suggestions of insecticide measures must suffice for this preliminary report, since few exact experiments have been made in this country with insecticide applications to the sugar beet, and there is very little expert testimony upon this subject to draw upon. CLASSIFICATION OF THE SUGAR-BEET INSECTS. As the beet grower usually cannot become an entomologist, and probably does not wish to become one if he could, it is important that he should have a means of identifying and recognizing insect injuries' to his beets without being compelled, more than is really necessary, to make himself acquainted with the names and habits of the insects con- cerned. This end he may accomplish in great measure by a careful observation of the injuries to the plants themselves, by which means he may readily limit his inquiries to a comparatively small number of in- sect species capable of doing the kind of injury under observation. Thus, if he finds the underground part of the beet eaten into or gnawed away he of course excludes at once from consideration those species which infest the plant only above ground, and also those which infest it under ground but which merely pierce it with their beaks and suck out its juices; and similarly, if he finds the leaves ragged and evidently being eaten away by biting insects, of whatever kind, his search for a remedy is greatly simplified. He needs only to see whether the injury is being done by blister-beetles, which should be driven from the field, or by cutworms or grasshoppers, which may best be destroyed by poi- soned baits. If he finds neither of these, he may proceed at once to spray his plants with an arsenical insecticide, knowing that whatever the insect agent of the injury may be this will be the proper method of attack. In this paper the insects likely to do any single kind of injury have been brought together for discussion in an economic group the members of which are few in number and readily distinguishable from each other, and the inquirer is thus brought by the shortest and easiest route to the sources of the practical information which he desires. 404 BULLETIN NO. 60. [August, The following classification of insect injuries to the beet and arrangement of injurious insects under them in economic groups is intended as an aid to these identifications. KEY FOR THE RECOGNITION OF INSECT INJURIES TO BEETS. (Plant apparently injured, but its substance above ground not evidently eaten in a way to account for the injury. . . . .2. I Substance of leaf evidently more or less eaten away. (Injuries by biting insects; arrested by arsenical poisons.) . . . ' . 7. (Leaves discolored that is, specked, spotted, or blotched with whitish, yellowish, or purple; often more or less wrinkled or curled. (Injuries by sucking insects or by mites; arrested by kerosene sprays.) 3. I Leaves not specked, spotted, wrinkled, or blistered to account for injury; under-ground part of plant affected. . . . .6. (Under surface, when very closely examined, seen to be covered with a very fine loose dirty web. Discolored blotches large, more or less cupped beneath. Minute oval reddish specks moving on surface of leaf. Red Sliders, p. 406. [ Surface of leaf not webbed. . . . . . .4. / Small blister-like cavities in the thickness of the leaf, making colorless 4 -| translucent spots. . . . Leaf -miners, p. 407. ( Leaf without blister-like spots. . . . . . 5. ( Many small greenish, yellowish, or grayish soft-bodied hopping insects on i leaves. Empty skins of the same usually scattered on the surface. Discolored specks of the leaf small. . Leaf -ho fibers, p. 410. I Leaf-hoppers not abundant. Discolorations usually larger. Plant-lice, leaf-bugs, plant-bugs, and other Hemiptera, pp. 428-448. I Small sluggish greenish insects numerous on underground growth, usually ., J associated with ants. . . . Root-lice, p. 507. I Roots eaten, excavated, or burrowed. [ Wireivorms, ^vhite grubs, muck-beetles* pp. 509-513. j Leaves cut off at ground. .... Ctttzuorms, p. 448. i Leaves not cut off. ....... 8. j Leaves rolled or folded. . 9. i ( Leaves not merely rolled or folded. . . . . .10. f Leaf rolled at edge, small striped green caterpillar within the roll. Q J Leaf-rollers, p. 453. j Leaf folded lengthwise at middle, sides closely webbed together, small green caterpillar usually in fold beneath web. Leaf-folders, p. 454. {Plant more or less covered or inclosed with loose open web, leaves eaten by spotted or striped caterpillars. . . Web-icorms, p. 454. Plant not webbed, leaves free. ..... n. ( Leaves riddled by small, usually circular holes. Many small hard leaf- beetles present. . Plant-beetles, flea-beetles, etc., pp. 460-476. | Leaves ragged by coarse irregular openings or eaten away irregularly from [ edges. . Grasshoppers, beetles, caterpillars, etc., pp. 476-506. *See also the dark-sided cutworm (Curneades wessoria), p. 450, foot-note. ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 405 DETAILED DISCUSSION OF GROUPS AND INJURIES. The imperfect state of our knowledge of the sugar-beet insects in America has made it important that both the beet grower and the investigating economic entomologist should be considered in the prep- aration of a detailed account of species and injuries. For the benefit of the beet grower the species have been discussed, so far as possible, in economic groups, and those which do the principal harm, or seem likely to become important enemies to this plant, are treated with especial fullness. As an aid to investigation, however, even relatively insignificant species have been noticed, and at least mention has been made of every insect known by us to be to any extent destructive. Considerable attention has also been given to the bibliography of the subject, and every bibliographical reference of any importance in our possession is contained in the list of papers presented herewith. Especial acknowledgments are due to Professor Lawrence Bruner, of the State University of Nebraska, for a complete list of insect species known to him as injurious to the sugar beet and for other useful infor- mation without which the difficulty of preparing this paper would have been very much increased. Copies of published figures have also been received from Professor Bruner and from others as follows: from the Division of Publications of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, through the kindness of Dr. L. O. Howard, Chief of the Division of Entomology; from Prof. H. E. Summers, State Entomologist of Iowa; from Prof. Otto Lugger, State Entomologist of Minnesota; from Director C. D. Smith, of the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station; from Director Jas. H. Shepard, of the South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station; from R. W. Doane, Assistant Zoologist of the Washington Agricultural Experiment Station; from Prof. M. V. Slingerland, Entomologist of the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station; from Dr. Jas. Fletcher, Dominion Entomologist and Botanist to Government Experimental Farms, Ottawa, Can ; from Director Chas. D. Woods, of the Maine Agricultural Ex- periment Station; and from the J. B. Lippincott Publishing Company, Philadelphia. To Mr. Theo. Hapke, formerly of the Illinois Sugar Refining Com- pany at Pekin, and to Prof. P. G. Holden, Superintendent of the Agricultural Department of this Company in 1900, we are indebted for many courtesies shown and assistance given during visits to their premises for the study of beet insects in the field. 406 BULLETIN NO. 60. [AugUS/ Leaves of plant discolored, and lower surface covered with a delicate, loose, and dirty iv ebbing. THE RED SPIDERS. THE COMMON RED SPIDER. Tetranychus bimaculatus Harv. About the first of September, 1899, during a period of uncommonly dry weather, in sugar-beet fields near Tremont and Pekin, 111., plants were observed here and there, most commonly near the margins of the fields, which were conspicuously paler than the rest, many of the leaves, especially the larger ones, being spotted and blotched with pale yellow- ish. The under surface of the leaf beneath these faded spots was un- usually dirty, and with a magnifier was seen to be coated with a fine loose web containing many minute particles; and moving over the sur- face of the leaf were minute oval translucent reddish mites, usually marked on each side of the back with a darker blotch. Many of the dust-like particles in the web on these leaves were evidently empty egg- shells of the mite, and others were its globular excreta. Careful com- parison of these specimens and of those found abundant on hemp in the vicinity of beet fields in 1900, showed that all belonged to the species mentioned above. The injury was not serious here, and no other instance of the occur- rence of the "red spider "in beet fields came to our knowledge last year; but the very severe injury which many kinds of vegetation suffer from these mites, particularly in hot and dry weather, makes it desirable that the attention of beet growers should be called to them. Although they are commonly more injurious to greenhouse plants than to growths in the open air, their occurrence on trees, shrubbery, and herbaceous vegetation generally is well known. A correct idea of the form and structure of this mite may be got from Fig. i, 2, 3, and no extended description need be given here, espe- cially as other species of the genus will very likely be found abundant on the beet leaf. The life history of these mites has not been thoroughly worked out, but they are believed to winter as adults among dead leaves, in the crevices of sticks, and in similar shelters. They begin to breed as soon as the weather favors their multiplication and continue active throughout the season, but the number and succession of generations is as yet unknown. According to the observations of Prof. F. L. Harvey,* by whom this species was described, it infests an unusual list of plants, distributed through no less than twenty-four of the botanical orders. Those worst injured at Orono, Me., were beans, fuchsias, wedding bell (^Brugmansia), castor-oil plant, and Boston smilax {Myr- *Ann. Rep. Me. Agr. Exper. Station, 1892, p. 133. 1900.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 407 siphylluiti). Among the other host plants are mignonette, pinks, roses, apricots, cucumbers, musk-melons, fever few, verbenas, sage, helio- trope, cypress vine, moon-flower, morning-glory, tomato, egg-plant, The Red Spider, Tetranychus bi- maculatus, male, greatly magnified. (Harvey.) 2. The Red Spider, Tetranychus bi- inaculatus. female, greatly magni- fied. (Harvey.) 3. The Red Spider, Te- tranychus bimaculatus, foot. (Harvey.) hop, and calla. If an insecticide operation is required for the destruc- tion of the red spider in beet fields, the usual kerosene sprays (see page 401) would probably be effective if so applied as to reach the under side of the leaves. Leaves marked with irregular blister-like blotches, due to removal of substance between the upper and the lower cuticle. THE BEET LEAF-MINERS. Chortophila floccosa Macq. Chortophila bet arum Lintn. Pegomyia vicina Lintn. The beet leaf-miners are the larvae or maggots of small flies which mine out the interior substance of the leaf in blotches of various shape, leaving the cuticle entire until it is ruptured later by the escape of the full-grown larva for pupation in the earth. The abandoned mines then become dried, shriveled, and discolored, and are further torn by the subsequent growth of the leaf. The three species known to injure the beet in America were re- ported from a single vegetable garden in New York by Dr. J. A. Lintner 408 BULLETIN NO. 60. [August, in 1881*. "A leaf free from eggs," says he, "could rarely be found, and so large a number of the leaves were blotched by this means that they could be no longer used for 'greens'." The attack continued throughout the greater part of the season, and a similar instance was noticed in 1882 by Dr. Lintner in Vermont. Fig. 4. The Beet Leaf-miner, Pegomyia vicina: a, surface of egg, very highly magnified; b, larva; c, last segment of same; d, anal spiracles; e, headiyi thoracic spiracles; g, cephalic hooks of larva; h, puparium; i, adult fly; k, head of male; /, head of female. (From Howard, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture.) A much more serious injury by these insects occurred in California in 1891 on the plantation of the Western Sugar Beet Company, where about a thousand acres of promising beets were all more or less dam- aged by one of the species above mentioned (P. vicina). In 1894 and 1895 the same species did much harm to spinach in New York, as reported by F. A. Sirrine.f These or related species feed also on the common white pigweed or lamb's-quarters {Chenopodium albuni}, in which they are often extremely abundant, and from this plant they are likely sometimes to spread to the beet. The eggs are placed by the female on the under surface of the leaf, sometimes singly, but most commonly in numbers varying from two to five together. From thirty to forty have sometimes been counted on a single leaf. The larvae enter the leaf at once on hatching, making a burrow which is in the beginning scarcely wider than the diameter of the egg-shell, but which expands within a short distance into an irregu- lar blotch. When two or more eggs are placed side by side the larvae from them occupy the same cavity. When they become so crowded as * First Ann. Rep. State Ent. N. Y., p. 203. t Fourteenth Ann. Rep. N. Y. Agr. Exper. Station, p. 6ic 1 900.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 409 to interfere with each other's food supply, some of them may leave their native mines and form others elsewhere. The leaf-miners observed by Dr. Lintner usually entered the earth for pupation, although a few formed their puparia between the leaves. From existing accounts it, appears that the species hibernate in the puparia, from which the flies emerge in April and May. The work of the larvae has been seen in the field from the middle of May until November 20. In Howard's breed- ing experiments the life cycle of a generation was about a month in length, and there are evidently several broods in a season, six or seven in New York, according to Sirrine's opinion. The great variation in the numbers of these insects in different years is probably to be ex- plained, fn part at least, by the destruction of their eggs and larvae by other insects. Most of the eggs examined by Lintner in September, 1881, had been destroyed, apparently by some insect which punctured them and fed upon their contents. A common predaceous insect, Coriscus ferus, was observed by Sirrine apparently puncturing the larvae from the outside as they lay in the mines. The following general description of Pegomyia vicina in its several stages, given by Mr. Sirrine, will serve for the identification of these insects. "The eggs are white, about .03 of an inch in length, delicately reticulated and nearly cylindrical in shape. The white reticulated por- tion of the egg is an outer covering, and is easily removed in little scale-like particles. When the eggs are deposited this covering is apparently viscid and aids in attaching them to the leaf. Beneath this reticulated covering is a semi-transparent membrane. "The maggot or larva is about five-sixteenths of an inch long when full grown, larger at the posterior than at the anterior end. When first taken from the leaf they have a white, glassy appearance. In the posterior half of the body the green contents of the intestine show quite distinctly, while the black, hook-like jaws, or what answers for jaws, can be seen as a curved line at the anterior end. " The puparium, or resting stage, is about .21 of an inch long, chestnut-brown in color when formed, but soon changing to a dark brown and difficult to distinguish from the surrounding soil. " The flies are quite variable in size. They usually carry the body in a slightly curved position. The front of the head is silvery white with a reddish brown line extending vertically through the center. The females are of an olivaceous ash color, and can be distinguished from the males by the following characters: The eyes are smaller and placed further apart than in the male. The legs, excepting the tarsi, are yellow or reddish yellow. The body is not as hairy as in the males, nor are the hairs as long, except at the end of the abdomen where there is a distinct tuft of long hairs. The males are darker colored than the 410 BULLETIN NO. 60. [AltgUSt, females, more hairy; the femora of the front pair of legs are nearly the same color as the body, the remaining legs are the same color as in the females. The eyes are large and nearly meet on the crest of the head." * No serious attempt has yet been made to destroy these insects or to prevent their multiplication. Sirrine applied kerosene emulsion to infested spinach leaves in 1895, but without success. It was by him at first supposed that deep plowing and rolling of infested fields in fall would bury the pupae to a depth such that the flies emerging could not escape, but experiments showed that they could work their way through at least eight inches of dirt. Leaves of beets in badly infested fields should undoubtedly be destroyed, since many of them will contain the insect at the time of beet harvest; and the presence of this insect serves to emphasize the general recommendations made with respect to sup- pression of pigweeds and other fleshy vegetation, in the leaves of which certain of these flies are said to breed. Leaves not eaten, but definitely and minutely specked or blotched with white or yellowish. Small green, yellowish, or grayish, hopping insects on the leaves. THE LEAF-HOPPERS. Jassoidea and Delphacina. Everywhere in the fields and grass-lands and on the leaves of trees, from early summer onward, small, rather slender, soft-bodied and very active insects may be found in abundance, usually greenish or grayish, often prettily marked with black or with brighter colors, the younger ones wingless, the adults with wings like those of grasshoppers in posi- tion when at rest. They vary from an eighth to half an inch in length, most of them being of the smaller size. They infest a very great variety of plants, and about thirty different species have been found on beets. These are the leaf-hoppers a name given them because they are found mainly on leaves and because they hop vigorously when alarmed. Their mouth parts form a sharp-pointed beak, directed downwards and backwards between the fore legs when at rest, and with this beak they puncture the leaves and soft stems of plants, sucking out the sap for food. Individually their injuries are insignificant, amounting to scarcely more than the draining of a few plant cells of sap for each meal; but the total effect of their attack for the entire season, especially when circumstances favor an extraordinary increase of their numbers, is sometimes serious and may become destructive. The immediate effect of their presence is seen in the appearance of small pale specks * From the Fourteenth Ann. Rep. N. Y. Agr. Exper. Station, pp. 629, ^30 ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 411 on the surface of the infested leaf, each speck representing a point of plant tissue deadened by the withdrawal of its living substance. A mul- tiplication of these dead blotches interferes with the performance of the function of the leaf, checks the growth of the plant, and, if exces- sive, may cause parts of it to die. Sometimes on the young leaf the injurious effect extends some distance beyond the puncture, as shown by a discolored stripe extending towards the tip of the leaf. The attack begins in early spring, and is continued without cessation until fall, the numbers of these insects increasing with the advance of the season as the various species breed in successive generations. The eggs are laid, as a rule, in the stems and leaves of plants or between the leaf-sheaths and stems of grass-like plants which have en- sheathing leaves. In an outdoor breeding-cage containing blue-grass and timothy a large number of grass leaf-hoppers in considerable variety were placed September 10. From September 19 to October 22 numer- ous minute eggs were found inserted side by side in a symmetrical row in the sheaths of the timothy. They were slightly curved, slender- elliptical in form, at first translucent yellowish and later reddish. These eggs were not hatched, but their resemblance to known eggs of leaf- hoppers appears sufficient for their identification. The various species hibernate as eggs or as adults, with which larvae are sometimes mingled. Those which pass the winter as adults begin to deposit their eggs in spring as soon as the season opens, and the young from these and from hibernating eggs of the preceding year become abundant in early sum- mer. As some species are single-brooded while others of similar habit produce two and three or more generations in a year, all stages of these insects can be found at almost any time, and systematic discrimination "of generations can be made by careful breeding experiments only. A comparison of dates of collections made by us in Illinois with those made by Professor H. E. Summers in the Southern States goes to show that species two-brooded in Illinois are frequently three-brooded farther south. The leaf-hoppers are, on the whole, unusually free from insect enemies. Two bugs of predaceous habit feed on them freely, namely, the damsel-bug {Coriscus ferns} and the glassy- winged soldier-bug (Hyaliodef vitripennis). Certain parasites also check their multiplica- tion by destroying the sexual organs of the adults. Leaf-hoppers have not thus far been reported as sufficiently injuri- ous to the sugar beet to require special measures for their destruction. The program of agricultural management included under the general head of clean culture not only for the beet plantation but for the entire farm will tend to keep their numbers down. If, however, they become seriously injurious it may profitably be remembered that they may be destroyed by the use of kerosene sprays either the emulsion with soap 412 BULLETIN NO. 60. [August, or the mechanical mixture with water already referred to on page 401. This might perhaps be successfully applied by a simple apparatus recommended by Professor John B. Smith for the destruction of leaf- hoppers in potato fields. Fouj nozzles suitable for producing a fine profuse spray are carried on a horizontal bar suspended from the back of the wagon, the nozzles being directed forward and a little downward. A light board is hung three or four feet in front of the horizontal bar to stir up the leaf-hoppers and expose them to the fine kerosene spray with which the air is filled. Arsenical insecticides would of course be with- out important effect, since these are internal poisons and could not reach the digestive organs of a sucking insect. The general aspect of the leaf-hoppers may be easily recognized after an examination of the various figures in this text. There is no special economic value in a discrimination of the numerous species in- festing the beet or in the details of the life history of each, but these will nevertheless have a certain general utility as an aid to observation and record by economic entomologists, and an attempt is therefore made here to give the most conspicuous distinctions of each group without entering into difficult structural details. It will first be necessary to separate the leaf hoppers known to infest the beet into four groups, distinguished in part by the position of the bead-like ocelli which always lie somewhere between the compound eyes. The first group (PI. I.), belonging to the family Fulgoridcz, subfamily Delphacince, are small, with clear membranous wings bearing various dark markings. The head and thorax are acutely ridged, and the antennae have a stout finger-like base, with a thread-like terminal bristle. The ocelli are close in front of the lower angle of the 'compound eyes, and there is a conspicuous movable spine at the tip of the hind tibia. The same species sometimes presents both long-winged and short- winged forms. The remaining groups belong to the superfamily Jassoidea, with opaque or tinted wings, the antennal bristle rising from a merely thick- ened base, and the ocelli higher up on the head. In the second group (Fig. 5-7) the species of Agallia only are included. These are small brownish strongly wedge-shaped insects, with head obtuse in front, and the ocelli well up on the face but below the front margin of the head. The third group (Fig. 8, 9) includes the large species treated in this paper, those belonging to Oncometopia, Diedrocephala, and Gypona. They range from three-sixteenths to half an inch in length. The most distinctive characteristic is the position of the ocelli, which are on the flat top of the head, bejween the eyes. The fourth group (Fig. 10, u; PI. II.; PI. III., Fig. i, 2) contains a large number of species, nearly all quite small and variously colored, I9OO.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 413 with the ocelli wanting or, if present, situated on the front edge of the head. The three species of the first group on our list have been but little noticed by economic entomologists. Stobera tricarinata (PI. I., Fig. i) and Liburnia ornata (PL I., Fig. 3) have a broad brown cloud in the shape of an inverted V near the tip of each wing. In Stobera the wing veins are all spotted alternately black and white, and there is a brown spot on the lower edge of the wing within the inverted V. The head and thorax are yellowish or brownish above, and the face is barred with black. Liburnia ornata is most quickly recognized by a conspicuous narrow white line from the middle of the back over the thorax and head, with a black line each side. It has a clearer wing, with black dots on the basal part only of some of the veins. Narrow brown lines extend from the V-shaped cloud along some of the veins. Liburnia puella (PI. I., Fig. 2) has a black head and thorax and transparent wings, each wing with a brown spot at its upper edge near the middle of the length of the body, making, when the wings are folded, a distinct brownish blotch near the middle of the body. Four species of Agallia taken on beets comprise the second of our groups. In these the narrow upper surface of the. head bears at least a pair of round black dots, and the prothorax usually has one or two pairs of dots, anterior and posterior, with sometimes a longitudinal black line between them. Agallia 4-punctata (Fig. 5, #) is yellowish brown, the dots on the head distinct as well as a pair on the prothorax close to its hind margin. A. pair of prothoracic dots in front of these and a median dark line are also sometimes present. The wings are brown, with pale veins. Agallia novella (Fig. 6, a), a common Illinois species, is also yellowish brown, the imago often more or less suffused with bronze. The head bears four distinct black dots above, an additional one on each side being placed behind the eyes. The posterior pair of thoracic dots are well marked but commonly rather small, placed about half way between the front and hind margins, and the median longitudinal thoracic line is also usually present. The wings are pale, with paler veins. Agallia sanguinolenta (Fig. 7, a), our commonest species of the genus, is com- monly darker brown; the dots on the head, and usually the first pair on the prothorax, are large and distinct, the other markings not so evident. The prothorax and the head above are commonly streaked with darker bands, the scutellum bears a W-shaped dusky mark, and the wings are more or less dusky brown with the veins partly black and partly white. Agallia uhleri, a western species, is a pale insect withktwo dots on the head and only a trace of the first pair on the thorax. The wings are whitish with the veins darker posteriorly. The nymphs of these species of Agallia present also some evident 41 4 BULLETIN NO. 60. \_AllgUSt, distinctions. That of 4-punctata (Fig. 5, c} is dark with a pair of sub- quadrate horn-like processes projecting forward between the eyes, and there is a serrate crest along the middle of the back of the abdomen. The nymph of novella (Fig. 6, c) is similarly crested, and the top of the head projects somewhat upwards but scarcely forward; that of sanguinolenta (Fig. 7, c} has neither crest nor cephalic projections, but the black head-dots are visible. The nymph of ithleri we have not seen. Of the third group, Oncometopia undata (Fig. 8) is a full half inch in length, the wings are purplish, and the head and scutellum are orange reticulate with black. Diedrocephala versuta is about three-sixteenths of an inch long, dark yellowish green, with one greenish blue and two orange stripes on each wing and some marginal black dots near the tip. The head is ornamented above with a yellowish submarginal stripe, often bluish, and one down the middle, both sharply defined by fine black lines. Diedrocephala mollipes (Fig. 9), a very common species, is similar to the foregoing but larger, from a quarter to three-eighths of an inch long, the wings dark green with bluish veins and yellow edges, the head, scutellum, and front of thorax yellowish, the first with some fine black lines irregularly placed. Gypona octolineata is a broad, oval, straw-colored species, three-eighths of an inch long, the thorax indefinitely lined with yellow or reddish, and the ocelli bright, but pale red. The last and largest of the four groups is difficult of satisfactory analysis. Among the larger forms Platymetopius acutus (Fig. 10) is bright brown with ivory-whitish spots and a notably broad and pointed head. The wings have a series of oblique black dashes along their lower edge, and are so shaped that they diverge behind the body when folded, leaving a broad notch between them at the tip. Eutettix seminuda has a short, broadly rounded head and a whitish back with a large light brown saddle-mark. Phlepsius irroratus (PI. III., Fig. 2) is whitish with a very fine dark brown network on the upper surface, giving the general effect of a uniform light brown shade. It is three- sixteenths of an inch in length, or more. Deltocephalus inimicus (Fig. 12) is best known by the three similar pairs of large black dots, one on the head, one on the prothorax, and one on the triangular scutellum. The wings have a whitish ground-color with brown margins to the cells. Among the small green species Deltocephalus melsheimeri (Fig. 1 1) is gray-green without distinct markings, and its head is unusually flat and triangular above. Deltocephalns nigrifrons (PI. II., Fig. 2) has a row of six small black^and nearly equal dots along the front of the head as seen from above, and the face is barred with black. The two species of Gnathodus here mentioned are plain dark green with very short heads, the surface visible from above having the form of a curved band of 1900.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 415 nearly equal width throughout. In G. abdominalis the back of the abdomen is brownish, while in G. impictus it is green like the rest of the body. Cicadula sexnotata (PI. II., Fig. i) has a pair of black dots at the back of the upper surface of the head, and in front of each of these a pair of black cross-bars. The genus Empoasca includes the tiny yellowish green forms excessively abundant in beet fields and elsewhere. E. mali (PI. II., Fig. 3) has six white spots along the front of the pro- thorax; E. flavescens (PI. II., Fig. 4) has only three larger spots in that situation; and Dicraneura fieberi is somewhat amber tinted, with a pale cloud on the prothorax. Late in fall we once found a number of grape-vine leaf-hoppers {Typhlocyba PI. III., Fig. i) on young beets. These, like the forms just mentioned, are very small and delicate, but are brightly marked with black, ivory-white, red, and other colors. Stobera tricarinata Say. {Delphax tricarinata Say, Liburnia intertexta Uhl. MS.*) (PI. I., Fig. i.) This common leaf-hopper ranges from Canada and New Jersey as far south as Texas and west to California. We have taken it occasion- ally on sugar beets, and Bruner has recorded it as a beet insect under the name Liburnia intertexta. We have collected it in sweeping grass and weeds and once saw it puncturing a blade of corn. It hibernates as an adult. Our data indicate that this leaf-hopper is two-brooded. Adults have been taken by us principally in the fall months and December and again in April and May (the hibernating brood), and at the end of June and in July (the second brood). Libnrnia ornata Stal. (PI. I., Fig. 3.) This pretty little insect ranges from the Mississippi to the Atlantic coast; and it is not rare in the sugar-beet fields of Illinois. Its life history is apparently like that of the preceding species. It has been taken by us in large numbers in November in central Illinois, and in April in the southern part of the state. It thus seems to hibernate as an adult. We have again found it abundant on grasses, grains, and weeds in central Illinois in July and in southern Illinois in August a plain indication of a second brood. *Concerning this name Mr. E. P. Van Duzee writes us under date of October 20, 1899, as follows: "In the National Museum is a pale specimen that so far as I can discover does not differ in any re- spect from the females of Stobera tricarinata Say, bearing a label Liburnia intertexta Uhler. The name seems never to have been published. If no transposition has been made at the Museum you will- be perfectly safe in quoting this as the female of Say's species. This is taken from some unpublished notes of mine on this family " 416 BULLETIN NO. 60. [August, Liburnia puella Van D. (PI. I., Fig. 2.) This species is recorded from Iowa, Mississippi, New York, and New Jersey, and seems to have a more southerly range than L. ornata. We have taken it repeatedly on sugar beets on the University farm in July and October. In our general collections it is recorded for central Illinois from grass, grains, and various low plants in July and again in the fall up to about the middle of November; also, in August, for ex- treme southern Illinois. It is thus probably two-brooded, hibernating as an adult. Agallia 4-punctata Prov. .(A. punctata Kenyon. ) Fig. 5. Agallia 4-punctata: a, adult; 6, nymph, side view; c, nymph, dorsal view; d, face; e, elytron; _/", female, g, male genitalia. (Osborn and Ball.) This seems to be a northerly species, ranging from Canada and New York to Colorado, Arkansas, and Kentucky. It is moderately common in Illinois, but did not appear in our last summer's collections from the sugar beet. It has been found on beets in Iowa, however, by Professor Herbert Osborn, whose studies have contributed much to our knowledge of the leaf-hoppers of this genus. The species under con- sideration he says is "single brooded, the adult appearing in early spring, the females remaining until into July, The eggs are probably all deposited by the middle of June, from which the larvae appear in July, and by fall are nearly or quite full grown, passing the winter and issuing as adults again early the next spring." This species has been found on a great variety of plants, mostly Composite, such as sunflower and boneset (^Eupatoriinn), Cruciferce, Chenopodiacea and their garden relatives, beets, horseradish, cabbage, spinach, etc. "The larvae re- main on or near the ground and conceal themselves in the rubbish and humus, for which their color and appearance is peculiarly adapted." They usually occur in woods and similar shaded situations, but also on 1900 ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 417 plants, as mentioned above, whose abundant foliage furnishes the requisite shade. The adults are usually found on the younger portions of the stem. Agallia novella Say. (Macropsis nobilis, i4th Rep. State Ent. 111., p. 22.) Fig. 6. Agallia novella: a, adult; 6, nymph, side view; c, nymph, dorsal view; d, face; e, elytron; f, female, g-, male genitalia; h, male, side view. (Osborn and Ball.) Osborn reports this species also as occurring on sugar beets in Iowa. Its recorded range is similar to that of the preceding species, and it also occurs in Mexico and Vancouver, having evidently a very wide distribution over this country. We have collected it both in fields and woods, from rye, blue-grass, strawberries, various grasses and weeds, and from grape-vines, red cedar, apple, and pear. In the Four- teenth Report from the Office of the State Entomologist of Illinois (p. 22) it is referred to as injurious to corn. Specimens sent to Uhler pre- vious to that time had been named by him Macropsis nobilis Harr., and this name by which M. novellus Say was probably meant was there used to designate it. It is a common Illinois species, but did not ap- pear last summer among the leaf-hoppers seen by us on sugar beets. Like the preceding, it winters over in the nymphal stage. The hiber- nating nymphs transform more slowly than those of A. ^.-punctata, and the adults from them are common till near the end of July. These pro- duce young in August about a month later than 4-punctata which approach maturity by fall, and winter over in leaves and rubbish. Agallia sanguinolenta Prov. {Bythoscopus siccifolius Bruner. ) This species, our commonest Agallia, seems to range over nearly the whole United States, and is also found in Mexico and British America. 4i8 BULLETIN NO. 60. [August, It was first recorded as a sugar-beet insect by Bruner, and on account of its abundance and its fondness for beets this leaf-hopper may now and then give trouble. Osborn speaks of it as a persistent beet feeder, Fig. 7. Agallia sanguinolinta : a, adult; b, nymph, side view; c, nymph, dorsal view; d, face e, elytron;/", female, g, male genitalia. (Osborn and Ball.) and in the sugar-beet plats on the Illinois University farm it was fre- quently noted, becoming very abundant in October. Unlike A. punctata it prefers open sunny localities, avoiding damp shady woods. It is particularly destructive to clover, and in addition to sugar beets attacks also celery, turnips, cabbage, strawberries, blue-grass (to some extent), and a variety of weeds especially pigweed and lamb's- quarters (Amarantusand Chenopodium). Its punctures cause small white spots on blue grass leaves. The larva keeps near the ground and hides under rubbish. Its life history differs a little /rom that of the species of the genus mentioned above. It seems to hibernate mostly as an adult, under various sorts of rubbish old boards, hay, and other like shelter. We have taken it in such situations in December. In Osborn's breeding- cages eggs were found inserted beneath the cuticle of the clover leaf along the midrib of the blade, though most were probably laid in the leaf stems or in the bases of the plants. The first larvae from spring eggs appeared May 20th, and began to mature by July ist. Later, all stages could be found together until on the approach of winter the young all gradually became adult. Agallia uhleri Van D. This western species is recorded from garden and sugar beets in Colorado by Gillette and Baker ('-Hemiptera of Colorado," p. 81), and also from Sisymbrium canescens and alfalfa. Various dates are given from May yth to October i5th. The life history is not known. Oncometopia undata Fabr. This largest of our leaf-hoppers was found on sugar beets at Urbana during the latter part of June. It seems to be especially a grape insect, 1900.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 419 sometimes seriously injuring the vines and the fruit according to Walsh, laying its eggs in the stems, thus checking the growth, and puncturing the stems of the clusters, thus causing them to drop off. It is a greedy feeder, in many cases seemingly pumping out more sap Fig. s. Oncometo- than it needs, and ejecting this backward in a rapid suc- lta " cession of tiny drops. It is not confined to the ggrape, but may be seen clinging in numbers to the stems of the blackberry, rasp- berry, corn, okra, sunflower, and some common weeds. Being a very large and common leaf-hopper, pretty well distributed over the eastern United States, it may well deserve attention. It is more especially a southern species, and in Illinois is commonest in the southern part. Very little is known of its yearly history. Walsh surmises that it hibernates as an egg, the slits which he attributes to this species con : taining empty shells in July. Our dates for the adults range from the middle of May to the middle of July in Illinois, and to September xoth in the Southern States. Diedrocephala versuta Say. This green-and-blue-striped leaf-hopper of the Southern States ranges north into central Illinois, but is not so common here as in the southern part of the state. Examples were found at Urbana early in October on sugar beets in the Experiment Station plats. It has a variety of food plants, and in the South is very abundant on cotton but not seriously injurious. Osborn says that it is similar in habits ioD. coccinea, feeding in quiet sheltered spots near thickets or woods. Diedrocephala mollipes Say. We have in this large dull green leaf-hopper one of the commonest of our larger species, rarely abundant enough, however, to be econom- ically important. Jts range includes the United States, Canada, Mexico? 1^^^^ T WW T XM/ and Cuba> It was found frequently J&ftL JdtiC on sugar beets in October at Urbana, /^Mf k 1 /2R3K /MV but it feeds principally on sedges, grasses, and grain plants, including corn. The nymphs are light green or yellowish, with sharply pointed heads as in the adults. There are two broods of this species in a year. The eggs are laid in rank grasses and sedges on low grounds, and although we have found the adult in winter shelter as late as December i8th, the winter is passed mostly in the egg stage. Probably a few nymphs also hibernate. Fig. 9. Diedrocephala mollifies; a, young nymph; t, older nymph; c, adult. (Osborn.) 420 BULLETIN NO. 60. \_AugUSt, Most of the eggs hatch in May, the larvae becoming common in .early summer. In June these begin to transform to adults. We have taken the latter in large numbers at electric lights in the first half of June, and found them laying eggs for a second brood July i6th and 22d. The eggs were placed in the pith and woody tissue of bulrushes {Scirpus fluv iatilis} and in the substance of the leaf sheath and blades. June 23d to 25th these insects were noted as common on corn, and one was seen in the act of laying its eggs in a corn leaf. The second brood of larvae appear in August and September, transforming in fall to adults. These, again, gather in low grounds, and most of them lay eggs and die before cold weather. The species abounds especially on reedy grasses of the salt marshes of the Atlantic coast. In Kentucky it suffered severely in late July and early August from a parasitic fungus, Empusa grylli. It is probable that the burning of slough grass and the like vegetation in winter would be a useful measure of protection against injury by this insect. Gypona 8-lineata Say. This leaf-hopper, fairly common in Illinois, occurs over the eastern United States from Canada to Texas. It has occasionally appeared in our sugar-beet collections from the Experiment Station farm. Osborn says that it does not seem to be confined to any particular food plant, but may be found almost everywhere, preferring rank growths in shaded situations. The color deepens and changes with the season's advance, most of the first brood and the earliest of the second being light green with indefinite yellow lines and weak elytral reticulations; and the last of the first and nearly all of the second, dark green, with strongly reticu- late elytra. In September and October the lines tend to become red, and females may be found almost wholly scarlet dorsally. (Osborn.) Although our other species of Gypona are apparently one-brooded, this has two broods in a year. The adults of the first brood appear in late June and in July, and those of the second in fall. They are most abun- dant with us about the end of June, when they have been taken in large numbers at electric lights. The nymphal stages of these broods are commonest in June, and in August and September, respectively. There is no record of the capture of hibernating adults, and the species proba- bly winters in the egg. The head is noticeably wide, broadly rounded in front, and slightly shovel shaped. The front of the head in the larva is more elongate and very thin, the sides parallel in front of the eyes, and the tip broadly rounded. Platymetopius acuttts Say. This leaf-hopper is notably different from the other small beet- species in the pointed elongate head which has the form of an equal- 1900.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 421 Fig. 10. Platymetopius acutus, adult. Fig. b, face;c, e, male g Ball.) side triangle. The nymph has a light stripe down the center, red at the middle and tending to sep- arate into two spots upon the back of the abdo- men, with a black marginal stripe on each side. Gillette reports it from sugar beets, sumach, clem- atis, and oak. It occurs mostly on grass and weeds, especially in shady situations. Davis lists it among the celery leaf-hoppers. We have taken the nymph on apple May i5th. The species is found in Canada and the United States as far west as the Rocky Mountains. There are two broods annually, adults of the first commonly occurring from June i5th to July i5th, and of the second from the early part of August to the approach of winter. Nymphs are common late in May and in June and again in July and August. Its stage of hibernation is not definitely known. Deltocephalus melsheimeri Fitch. This was one of the leaf-hoppers taken in summer and fall on sugar- beets at the Experiment Station farm. It is especially a grass in- sect, sometimes present in myriads in lawns and pastures, but avoiding shaded situations. The eggs are laid in fall in grass, and the adults do not survive the winter. There are apparently three broods in the year. Adults, presumably from hibernating eggs, occur in late May and in June, and there is a brood of nymphs from the last of May into July, becoming adult in July and August. The next brood of nymphs is produced in August and early September, maturing and laying eggs by the close of the season. These successive changes are about ii. Deltocephalus melsheimeri: a, adult; tWO Weeks earlier than thOSC Of the head and pronotum from above; d, female, - 11 . . / r- % ;enitalia:y : wing; g. nymph. (Osborn and following SpCCieS (D. tmmiCUS~). 422 BULLETIN NO. 60. [August, Deltocephalus inimicus Say. {Jassus inimicus Say. ) This is one of the four or five species of leaf-hoppers most abundant in beet fields, and most likely to cause trouble there. It is widely dis- tributed over this country and into Canada, and is one of the most persistent and destructive leaf-hoppers of pastures and meadows. It was especially com- mon last season on beets during the early part of October, and has also been reported from cel- ery, corn, and buckwheat; but its preferred food is evidently grass. Its life history has been very thoroughly studied by Osborn. The eggs, he says, have been found inserted beneath the epi- dermis of blue-grass blades, form- ing minute blister-like swellings near the tips of the leaves, the end of the leaf beyond this in- variably turning yellow and dying. Webster secured the eggs in wheat leaves. The nymphs Fig. 12. Deltocephalus inimicus: a.adult; i.face are mOStly light yellowish, with a c, head and pronotum from above; d, female, e, male, u J Ul 1 u 'A .. . broad black margin each side, genitaha;/, elytron; g, nymph. (Osborn and Ball.) the head obtusely rounded in front. At intervals of seven to eight days they fix themselves upon the grass blades, head upward, and shed their skins, which split along the back, permitting the insects to struggle out. The cast skins remain for some time clinging to the grass blades. Three molts occur (Osborn, Webster) from the egg to the adult. Like most jassids this species winters in the egg stage, hatching in great numbers in grass-lands early in May. The young mature during the first half of June, the adults thus produced mostly disappearing by the middle of July. These lay eggs which hatch after ten or fifteen days, the nymphs becoming adult in about a month, beginning, that is, about the middle of August. Eggs are then laid for the next season's brood, and the adults laying them perish by the time winter sets in. There are thus two broods yearly, the larvae being most numerous in late May and in August, and the adults in June and in the fall. Large numbers of the latter appeared here at electric lights June 3-18. 1900.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 423 Osborn noticed that as many as ten per cent, of the larvae found in spring were infested by red mites. Deltocephahis nigrifrons Forbes. {Cicadula nigrifrons Forbes.) (PI. II., Fig. 2.) This leaf-hopper, abundant in Illinois beet fields, is also a destruc- tive grass pest and has been recorded as injurious to corn, wheat, and oats. It is known from New York, Louisiana, and California, and in- termediate localities, and is very common in Illinois. Two forms exist, one larger and lighter colored than the other, with defective wing vena- tion, and using its wings comparatively little. These differences are perhaps to be connected, like those of the two broods of Oncometopia undata, with differences of brood and season. No adults of the species have been taken in winter, and it almost certainly hibernates in the egg. There are probably two broods, adults of the first generation being abundant in June and July and those of the second in fall. We noted them here in large numbers at electric lights June 3d to yth and again June i5th. Nymphs are common about the first of June and in August. Athysanus sp. Bruner reports an undetermined genus of this species as occurring upon the beet in Nebraska.* Eutettix seminuda Say. This is not a very common leaf-hopper, but as it has frequently been observed on beets it is included here. It is found in the eastern United States and in Canada, and has attracted economic notice only as a cotton insect. It is often seen on cotton stalks in Mississippi, and has been observed to feed upon this plant by Mr. Ashmead, who remarks that it is a very omnivorous feeder, not likely to cause serious injury to any one plant. It is also recorded on birch, wild black cherry, and various bushes and low trees. Littl'e is known of its life history, but the season of occurrence of adults corresponds fairly well with that of the next species. It has been taken in the South from the middle of May, and in Illinois from about the middle of June to the end of October. Eutettix tenella Uhl. Recorded by Gillette and Baker as common on sugar beets in August. The species probably does not occur in Illinois. *Bull. No. 23, U. S. Dept. Agr. ( Div. Ent., p. r 7 . 424 BULLETIN NO. 60. [August, Phlcpsius irroratus Say. {Allygus irroratus Say.) (PI. III., Fig. 2.) This also is not especially a grass insect, but attacks a great variety of plants. It ranges from Canada and Massachusetts on the east to Iowa and Kansas on the west, and is abundant in Illinois. A number of specimens were taken on sugar beets in various parts of the state in June, September, and October. It is recorded on low herbage (Say), on willows and other plants in damp places (Uhler), on bushes and trees (Van Duzee), on celery (Davis), on apple (Gillette and Baker), on hickory (Packard), on grasses and grains (Osborn), and in dry weedy grass-lands (Van Duzee). We have found it abundant in young wheat in Illinois. It causes the dark purple spotting often seen on the leaves of lamb's-quarters, and probably a similar discoloration common on beet leaves (U. S. Bull. 23, p. 17). Bruner mentions an undetermined Allygus very likely this or some other Phlepsius as frequent on beets and causing the spotting of lamb's-quarters. We once found a small bass- wood brush swarming with this species in October. The leaves were noticeably faded and spotted with blackish points. The adults seem quite uniformly distributed through their season, which is from late May to about the middle of October, though they are especially abun- dant in June and the first part of July, and again in fall. There are probably two broods, and the winter is presumably passed in the egg stage as there is no record of winter collections of the adult. Thamnotettix belli Uhl. This is recorded only from Canada, Michigan, and Colorado. It is included here on the authority of Gillette and Baker, who have reported its occurrence on cultivated beet, alfalfa, and Artemisia tridentata in Colorado, the dates given ranging from May 8th to August i8th. Gnathodus abdominalis Van D. Gnathodus impictus Van D. The two species of this genus here mentioned are recognizable by their short transverse heads and somewhat dull green color. They are about an eighth of an inch long. Both seem widely scattered east of the Rocky Mountains, and have been taken with other leaf-hoppers on sugar beets, but they are not common enough as yet to be of any economic importance. Both occur in Illinois on corn and rye. We have taken abdominalis from wheat and grass, and Gillette and Baker record it from sugar beets and barley. We have found impictus on sugar beets, wheat, rye, blue-grass and other grasses, and in groves. The ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 425 data as to their life history are too scanty to show the number of broods. Abdominalis has been taken mostly in June and August, while our speci- mens of impictus were nearly all captured in May and July. Cicadula 6-notata Fall. (Cicadula 4,-lineata Forbes.) (PI. II., Fig. i.) The two pairs of black bars and two dots on the head above form the unmistakable trade-mark of this little green species, one of the most abundant in Illinois beet fields throughout the season. It has a wide but rather northerly distribution, reaching to Canada, Connecticut, Mis- sissippi, California, and Alaska, and a great variety of food plants, among which the grasses and small grains take a prominent place. Davis records it as the most abundant of the celery leaf-hoppers. We have reported it as especially injurious to wheat (Fourteenth Report, page 68), and have also collected it from oats, corn, sorghum, blue- grass and other grasses, apple, elm, willow, cucumbers, dog-fennel, and other weeds. No adults have been taken later than the middle of November or before the middle of May. The species doubtless hiber- nates as an egg. Apparently there are two broods, the adults being most abundant in the latter half of May and in June, and again in the fall months from September ist to the close of the season. Dicraneura fieberi Loew. This leaf-hopper closely resembles the species next mentioned, but it is slightly larger and more amber-colored, and without definite mark- ings on the thorax, the most important difference being in the wing venation. It has occasionally been taken by us on sugar beets in Illinois. It is found from Massachusetts to Kansas, but it is not very abundant. We have taken it also on grass-lands and in woods, and on elm and soft maple-trees. Specimens have been taken from late in May through July, and again from near the end of August to early in November, thus indicating two broods and hibernation in the egg. Empoasca mail LeBaron. {Empoa albopicta Forbes.) (PI. II., Fig. 3.) Although not destructive in grass-lands, this delicate little shining- winged, yellow-green insect is probably our worst all-round leaf-hopper pest, so excessively abundant that notwithstanding its varied diet it is able to make a serious attack on quite a number of the cultivated plants of its list. It is extremely abundant on sugar beets everywhere, both in the nymph and adult stages, thus showing its ability to breed on this 426 BULLETIN NO. 60. \AugUSt ', plant. It is probably the species mentioned by Bruner in his list of beet insects as Erythroneura sp. It was first named and studied as an apple insect, and as such in nurseries probably does the greatest damage; but it' is also injurious to raspberries and garden vegetables, especially potatoes and celery, to clover, corn, and sorghum. It is further recorded in our notes on black walnut, Ptelea trifoliata, and elm, as well as on oats, rye, grass, and some weeds, and by Gilette on beans, plum, wild grape, and cottonwood. Nymphs have been observed on celery, and other plants, as well as on apple. On infested young apple-trees the injury is very evident. The leaves curl and crinkle and the internodes are shortened, showing retardation of growth. No local effect of their punctures on beets has been recognized, but in view of the large numbers usually present in beet fields there is good reason to believe them capable of injury to beets. What we supposed to be the eggs of this species were found in slight swellings in the green twigs and the midrib and leaf stem of the apple. The nymphs are pale green. There is considerable uncertainty in using the statements of others concerning this insect because of the frequency with which it has been confused with other small greenish or yellowish species of its own and related genera, descriptions and figures of which may be found in Gillette's article on the Typhlocybina in the Proceedings of the U. S. National Museum, Volume XX., page 709. The row of six (or even eight) white dots along the front margin of the prothorax are evident as a rule even in alcoholic specimens, and at once distinguish the species. If this character is unsatisfactory, reference should be made to the wing venation, good figures of which are given by Gillette in his article. Specimens in alcohol can be conveniently examined by spreading out the wings, when wet, on a glass slide. The species most likely to be confused with this are Aletra albostriella^ without distinct markings, bred by us from basswood, and reported on pear and cherry; Typhlocyba rosa, yellowish without markings, found by us common on rose, goose- berry, and apple, and reported by Gillette also on cherry, currant, plum, grape, oak, and cottonwood; Dicraneura fieberi, already described above; Empoasca obtusa, bred by us on apple and collected on willow, having similar venation, but of larger size and with the head scarcely longer at the middle; and, finally, the species next to be treated, E. flavescens (PL II., Fig. 4), which has been found with malt on apple and sugar beets, and in which there are usually three pronotal spots instead of six. Observations on this or a related species show a rather rapid devel- opment from the laying of the egg to the imago within a month. The adults were noted as very abundant in late April and early May; common and more numerous than the nymphs early in June; on June 26th, 1900.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 427 " rising in clouds," nine tenths of them nymphs. None of the images are recorded in Illinois from November ist to the last of April, and it is almost certain that they pass the winter in the egg. It can only be surmised from present data that there are four or more broods in a season in central Illinois. Empoasca flavescens Fabr. (PL II., Fig. 4 .) This is closely related to the preceding species and similar to it in habit and food plants, so far as these are known to us. It was not found among the sugar-beet leaf-hoppers until fall, but became very common in October, more so indeed than mali. It is whiter than malt, and has only three spots on the margin of the thorax. These are not always distinct, and indefinite markings resembling them may be noted in some similarly colored species of related genera, which may be distinguished by their venation, as mentioned above. The species is common and widespread, and is reported from localities ranging from New York and the District of Columbia to California and Mexico. Its smoky-winged variety, birdii, is recorded from New York, Michigan, Illinois, and Iowa, on apple, hops, walnut, beans, and weeds. It has been collected December i6th, and again among leaves in the woods in early spring. We have taken it as early as April 2oth. This indicates hibernation as an imago, and considering its abundance in late fall it is evident that its life history is unlike that of mali perhaps more like that of the Typhlocybas next to be treated. THE GRAPE LEAF-HOPPERS. Typhlocyba. (PI. III., Fig. i.) Early in October, on sugar beets on the University farm, the species Typhlocyba vulnerata Fitch was very common, and a few of T. comes Say and its variety vitis Harr. were also seen. These and a number of other tiny leaf-hoppers finely marked in various patterns with scar- let, orange, ivory-white, etc., on a pale yellowish white ground color, are commonest and very injurious on wild and cultivated grape-vines, Virginia creepers and redbud, and also occur on raspberry and a few other plants. They are widely distributed throughout the country. These leaf-hoppers spend the winter as adults in large numbers among dead leaves and other trash upon the ground, coming out and laying their eggs on the vine leaves when warmer weather comes in April and May. By the middle of June the adults become numerous, and continue in increasing numbers until the leaves fall at the end of the season. All stages may be found on the vines at once, and the suc- cession and number of broods has never been made out. 428 BULLETIN NO. 60. \AugUSt, THE TREE-HOPPERS. Membracidce. Acutalis calva Say. As might naturally be expected, the tree-hoppers live mostly on trees. A few, however, may occur on herbaceous plants, such as the present species, which we noticed on the sugar beet^n the latter part of June. It is about an eighth of an inch long, triangular when seen from above, blunt in front, acute behind, black above, the wings on each side yellowish white. Its favorite food seems to be the "Joe Pye weed " (Eupatorium purpureum}, but we have taken a few on honey-locust and it is reported on buckwheat by Webster.* Our speqimens were mostly taken in the latter part of June. The life history of the species is not known to us. It is found throughout the United States east of the Rocky Mountains and in Mexico. Leaves variously spotted and blotched and sometimes minutely specked. Suctorial insects present which are not leaf-hoppers. PLANT-LICE.^ Aphididce. Occasionally where the beet leaf is visibly but obscurely injured, as shown by a blotchy discoloration of the surface or by a crinkling and curling of the leaf, small, sluggish, inactive bluish green or blackish insects known as plant-lice (aphides') may be found clustered in patches on the under surface of the affected leaf. These leaf-lice are oval or somewhat egg-shaped, their bodies are soft, their legs and antennae are well developed, and at the back of the abdomen, near the hinder end of the body, a pair of prominent tubes the so-called honey-tubes pro- jects backwards or upwards like miniature stove-pipes. The greater part of them are without wings, but, among these, winged individuals will occasionally occur, with large, delicate, few-veined wings. Ants of various species are likely to be found with and among them, and, indeed, wherever ants are abundant on or about the beets, the presence of plant- lice may always reasonably be suspected. They do their injury to veg- etation by sucking the sap through a stiff, jointed beak by means of which the tissues of the plant are pierced. Three species have hitherto been reported on the beet leaf in America, and to these three more are added in this paper. We have not yet found in Illinois any plant-louse species infesting the leaf of the sugar beet in sufficient numbers to do appreciable injury, *Rep. Comm. Agr., 1886, p. 577. tTwo additional species of plant-lice infesting beets, Aphis middletonii and Pemphigus betce, are described on a later page under the head of insects affecting the roots of this plant. ECONOMiq ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 429 but their rate of multiplication is enormous, and under especially favor- able circumstances almost any species may rapidly become so abundant locally as practically to destroy its food plant for the time being. Most of the species hatch from eggs in the spring, all of this first generation being females capable of reproducing without copulation, and giving birth to living young as soon as they themselves become adult. Several generations are ordinarily brought forth in like manner in a single season, only the last of which is composed of both males and females, and these produce the eggs by means of which the species is carried past the winter. These insects are commonly kept in check by their natural enemies, the ladybugs, the lace-wing flies, and a number of rapidly-breeding par- asites. It is only occasionally, consequently, that remedial measures are likely to be necessary. In that case tobacco-water, kerosene emul- sion, or a mechanical mixture of water and kerosene should be used, as prescribed for leaf-hoppers on page 412. The arsenical poisons, Lon- don purple, Paris green, and the like, are inadmissible, since they do not take effect on the plant-louse, but will kill many of its insect enemies. They are thus likely to increase the danger instead of diminishing it. THE MELON APHIS. Aphis gossypii Glover. {Aphis cucumeris Forbes.) This is the common melon and cucumber aphis of the central United States. It abounds on a large variety of plants throughout all the United States except the extreme northern part, and also in Mexico, the West Indies, arid Australia. It was found in Nebraska by Mr. T. A. Williams in 1890 breeding abundantly on beets in the vicinity of infested cucumber vines. An injury attributed to ants, reported from Nebraska, was perhaps due to this species. Its leading food plants are melons, cucumbers, and other vines of the cucumber family, crops of which it sometimes almost destroys. It is also abundant on cotton, beans, pear-trees, European dogwood, orange-trees, hothouse plants, and a large number of the commonest weeds, including purslane, shepherd's- purse, pepper-grass, pigweed (Amarantus~), lamb's-quarters {Chenopo- diuni), plantain, dock, dandelion, Jamestown weed {Datura), etc.; also, in lesser numbers, on hops, spinach, tomato, red clover, and burdock. The eggs have been found on purslane, and are at first yellowish or greenish, but soon become jet-black. The color of the wingless lice varies all the way from yellow or green to black; the antennae, about half as long as the body, are mostly pale, and the honey-tubes are black. The winged ones are similarly varied, but are never entirely black; the 430 BULLETIN NO. 60. \AugUSt, head, antennae, and honey-tubes are black, together with some bars on the thoracic segments and some lateral abdominal spots. Eggs and many wingless females have been found in midwinter; in May the lice gradually increase in numbers on the plants; and in the latter half of June, according to Professor J. B. Smith, if sufficiently numerous and favored by fine weather, an extensive migration of winged individuals occurs, rapidly enlarging the infested area. After the first week of July this movement of dispersal ceases under ordinary circum- stances; but winged lice have been seen as late as August. The sexually mature forms have not yet been distinguished. Ants assist to some ex- tent in transporting and distributing the lice in summer. Aphis atriplicis Linn. Both in America and Europe this is a common species on plants of the order Chenopodiacetz, especially orache {Atriplex} in Europe, and lamb's-quarters {Chenopodiuiri) in America. It is reported by Bruner as common on beets in Nebraska. The effect on Atriplex is peculiar. The leaf-lice cluster along the midribs, mostly on the upper surface, causing a tubular longitudinal rolling up of the leaves.* The species is listed from Illinois and Missouri. It is closely related to the preceding, and further study may show that the two forms are not distinct. The eggs are of the usual form and color, and were found with sexually perfect individuals in dry rolled leaves of Atriplex. The sum- mer females vary from green to black, but are mostly blackish spotted with white. The sexually perfect individuals are wingless and much smaller than the viviparous form. Aphis sp. A number of wingless females were swept in July from beets in a field near Tremont, 111., the species of which we have not found de- scribed. Not having winged individuals and not being sure of the host plant, it seems best to leave the species unnamed. It seems to belong to the Nectarophorini of CEstlund, and is easily recognized by two dark rings on the antenna, which include the sutures between segments III, IV, and V, and by the dark color of the apex of V and the basal part and tip of VI (the so-called VI and VII); by the broad conical cauda, widest at base; and by the long honey-tubes and antennae, both surpass- ing the tip of the body. The antennae are raised on low tubercles. The setaceous part of VI is about twice as long as III; the honey-tubes are as long as the anterior femora. Myzus achyr antes Monell. This was originally described from specimens found on Achyrantes, a plant belonging to the pigweed family, and might naturally be looked *Kaltenbach, Die Pflanzenfeinde, p. 508. 1900.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 431 for on beets. It is at present, in fact, our commonest beet leaf-louse in Illinois. Though not especially abundant, it occurs in small colonies on the under side of the leaves in the latter part of June and in July, being most numerous about the end of June. The first winged individuals were noted July 5th. It is a green aphis, with but little dark coloring in the wingless female. The winged female has the thorax and antennae black and a large dark patch on the abdomen between the honey-tubes. The species is also recorded from Amarantus (Williams) and Malva ro- tundifolia QEstlund), and we have collected it in abundance on corn. Nectarophora erigeronensis Thos.? Specimens were taken in sweepings from sugar beets July i3th, i4th, and 26th in the vicinity of Pekin, 111., and on the University farm (on the first date mostly wingless) which agree fairly well with the descriptions of erigeronensis except as to the tibiae. These are usually pale with black tips, and not entirely black as stated for erigeronensis. The honey- tubes are either entirely dark or with the basal portion pale. The an- tennas are dark except at base, the femora with the apical part, or even more than half the length, black. Nectarophora pisi Kalt. The " green dolphin " is a rather common garden pest in the United States. Its body and appendages are almost entirely green. It infests principally plants of the pea family (^Leguminosaf) , especially the garden pea, sweet pea, and clover, but has also been taken in the pupal and winged stages on beets in Nebraska, and in Europe on shepherd's-purse, nettles, and Spircea. In Illinois it occurs mostly about the end of May. THE FLATAS OR LANTERN-FLIES. THE MEALY FLATA ( Ormenis pruinosa Say). THE GREEN FLATA {Chlorochroa conica Say). Although these odd looking insects, closely related to the leaf- hoppers, are common and injurious in Illinois and elsewhere, they have not received the attention from economic entomologists that they deserve. They are "from a quarter to half an inch long, with broad flat wings, held vertically and meeting behind the body. As the insect is broad in front, the general form when at rest, seen from above, is that of a wedge. The young are covered with a white woolly excretion. Like some plant- lice they collect in patches on the under side of leaves or on their stems, and do their injury by sucking out the sap. These young are rather short and blunt at the ends, very broad across the wing-pads, and pale greenish beneath the woolly coating. This latter rubs off easily, but those which have lost it reproduce it within a few days. 43 2 BULLETIN NO. 60. \August, The green Flata is clear yellowish-green throughout, about three- eighths of an inch long, and the wings about one-fifth of an inch broad. The head is pointed in front between the eyes. The mealy Flata is smaller than the above, about one-fourth of an inch in length and one-eighth of an inch across Fig 13 The Green the w i n g s - I ts color is at first pale bluish-green, some- FUta, chiorochroa times darkening to a slate-color or sooty brown, dusted over with a whitish coat. The head is short and cut squarely off across the front between the eyes. Both the above species have been found on sugar beets and on a variety of other plants, sometimes in number sufficient to do injury, although in general they are not very common insects. Many adults of both were seen by us in July on sugar beets with beaks inserted in the leaves. They were most abundant near a hedge of Osage orange, one of their favorite food plants, on which they had very likely bred. The eggs of the mealy Flata are laid in the bark of twigs within a lengthwise slit with raised edges, and are placed end to end in a continuous row an inch or more in length. Those believed to belong to the green Flata, on the other hand, are placed in a series of short slits, placed nearly end to end, within each of which is an egg which has been pushed sidewise under the bark, causing a noticeable elevation of the bark over the eggs. The mealy Flata is recorded by various authors as Flata, Ormenit prut- * f nosa, eggs: a, form and abundant and injurious on grape-vines, apple-trees, arrangement; *, inser- gooseberry rhubarb, Olivet (LigUStrum) , maple, hack- tion in twig; c, row of e *' : eggs in twig. berry, red clover, fleabane, and various other weeds. Miss Murtfeldt * found it on a large variety of plants, but especially on dahlias, which were injured beyond recovery. We have bred it from nymphs on apple, elm, box-elder, and observed it in numbers on black- berry, sugar beet, and Osage orange, on the first of which it was seen actually to feed. Riley found the eggs in sassafras twigs. The green Flata probably has a similar list of food plants. Miss Murtfeldt ob- served it on Osage orange and lilac. It was found by an assistant of this office, Mr. C. C. Adams, breeding abundantly (June 3oth) on the stalks of corn in a corner of a field, and was later found in numbers on ragweed, catnip, milkweed, and the Osage orange in the same vicinity. Probably these species hibernate in the egg, which, according to Riley, hatches about the middle of May. Nymphs of the mealy Flata found by him June 2oth were full grown July 3d. Our largest rearings of both species the green Flata on corn and the mealy species on box- *Bull. No. 13, U. S. Dept. Agr., Div. Ent., p. 61. 1 900.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 433 elder were from colonies first observed June 3oth. The latter began to emerge July ist and nymphs were still numerous July i2th. The former {conica} was a little later, adults not appearing till July 2ist. An exami- nation July 27th of the place where these specimens were found, revealed a large number of adults and only a single nymph. Nymphs of this species taken on various plants July 8th to i5th emerged from the iyth to the ipth. Our earliest date for the imago is July 6th. Adults of both species were seen by us on sugar beets July i4th; and they were abundant in the early part of August on their favorite food plants. We have col- lected adult pruinosa up to the middle of September, and have taken single individuals of conica October 3d and of pruinosa November i4th. This record strongly indicates that there is but one annual brood, nymphs occurring from about the middle of May to late in July, and images from July to the end of the season. These insects are especially sensitive to the effects of rainy weather, as was strikingly shown by colonies of C. conica on corn. After a heavy rain very few could be found on stalks where they had been common before, while on plants which afforded them better shelter their numbers were not so much diminished. THE PIGWEED BUG. Piesma cinerea Say. This small, gray, rough and much-flattened, somewhat diamond- shaped bug, well shown in Fig. 15, was very abundant on pigweed (Ama- rantus} in sugar-beet fields in central Illinois July i3th, yet scarcely one was seen on the beet itself. Experience has shown, however, that it will attack the beet energetically if its favorite food plant becomes scarce. In Iowa, and especially in Nebraska, it has been noticed by Osborn and Bruner respectively as very common on beets, sometimes doing much harm. It lives also on smartweeds, grasses, and a variety of trees, among which the buckeye may be especially mentioned, and occasionally injures the blossom of the grape in spring. The effect of its work upon the plant is Fig. 15. The Pigweed ., i_ ji f L j j i Bug, Piesma cinerea. (Os- vei T evident on badly infested pigweeds, where bom, u. s. Dept. of Agn- whitish dots thickly mottle the surface, the plants evidently suffering from loss of effective leafage. Its life history is not peculiar. Adults are very abundant from late May to early July in central Illinois, and again from October onward. They winter under any convenient shelter, but are abundant under the loose bark of trees, a situation to which they are especially adapted by their flattened form. Their occasional abundance is illustrated by the fact 434 BULLETIN NO. 60. {August, that an immense swarm of this species was noticed at Normal, Illinois, October 3d, the insects flying in great numbers high in the air from three to five in the afternoon. Clean culture and the burning of trash the first to reduce the food and the second to destroy the winter quarters will check the multipli- cation of this species as well as that of a great number of similar insects. THE COMMON FLOWER BUG. Triphleps insidiosus Say. This is an insect of so uncertain habit and varied food that its in- sertion in a list of species injurious to the beet is of doubtful propriety. The fairly common occurrence on the beet plant throughout the season of both old and young render it, however, an object of suspicion and worthy of brief treatment here. It is a minute flattened bug, black, with yellowish wing tips, everywhere distributed, and on a great variety of plants. It has been charged with serious in- jury to chrysanthemum shoots, causing them to curl and stopping their growth, and Osborn re- ports it as actually puncturing clover blossoms. Fig. 16. The Common Flower * Bug, Triphups insidiosus. (Os- with its beak;* but most of the evidence con- bom, u.s.Depu of Agriculture.) cerning its food habits indicates insectivorous propensities. It has been seen devouring young chinch-bugs, the Phyl- loxera of the grape, young Thripida, and the eggs of the cotton boll- worm. We have observed it also feeding on the minute soft larvae of the clover midge, and in confinement individuals of this species will attack each other. The available data do not determine its stage of hibernation. We have not found it as an adult earlier than April 3oth nor later than October 26th. Most of our specimens were taken in May and during the late summer and fall. Young have been seen by us on beets as late as September, and adults occur on this plant throughout the season, mostly out of sight between the bases of the leaves. THE LEAF- BUGS. Capsidce. Among the suctorial insects which sometimes do a rather indefinite but serious injury to beets by sucking out the sap from leaf and leaf- stalk, the large and varied group known as the leaf-bugs, or CapsidH Certain of these jumping beetles are, however, so common and occasionally destructive in the beet field that they are deserving of special mention. The yellow-black flea-beetle {Disonycha xanthomelana PI. V., VI.) is one of the commoner beet insects, both larva and adult feeding upon the leaves. It may be distinguished among the flea-beetles by its com- paratively large size (its length about a quarter of an inch), by its metallic greenish-blue or black head and wing-covers, with the thorax uniform pale yellowish above and black beneath and the abdomen entirely yellow beneath. A much smaller, also very abundant, species whose injuries in spring frequently attract attention, is the pale-striped flea-beetle {Systena taniata Fig. 39). This is about an eighth of an inch in length, light yellowish brown in general color, with a broad pale stripe down each wing-cover. "j" Trans. Am. Ent. Soc., Vol. XVI. (1889), pp. 163-320. tOther species which have been found on beets, many of them more or less injurious, are Disonchya. crtnicollis, D. triangularis, and D. cervicalis, Systena hudsonias and S.frontalis, Phyllotreta vittata, P. albionica, and P. decipiens, Epitrix brevis, Crepidodera atriventris, Glyptina brunnea, Longilarsus tnclanurus, Chcetocnema dentzculata, C. pulicaria, and C. confinfs, and Psylliodes punctulata and P. 1900.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 463 The leaf-beetles which do not have the leaping habit are fewer in number and much more readily discriminated. The two " French bugs" {Monoxia), not found in Illinois, are either pale yellowish with indefinite spots (^M. consputa) or uniform in color but varying from yellow to black, rarely with a more or less distinct pair of dark stripes on the wing-covers (Af. puncticollis}. The beetle of the northern corn root worm {Diabrotica longicornis Fig. 49) is uniform green; that of the southern corn root worm (Z>. 12-punctata Fig. 45), generally yellow with three cross rows of black dots on the wing-covers, four in each row. The common cucumber beetle (D. vittata Fig. 46 a) is striped with black and yellow; and the grape-vine Colaspis (C. brunnea PI. IX., Fig. i) is a thick clay-yellowish beetle about an eighth of an inch long, with cylindrical thorax only about half as wide as the body across the prominent shoulders. THE LARGER STRIPED-FLEA-BEETLE. Disonycha crenicollis Say. This rather large flea-beetle, about a quarter of an inch in length, striped with pale yellow and black and with a pair of black dots near the middle of the yellow thorax, has been occasionally found by us in the beet fields of Illinois in summer and fall, and has also been seen on beets in Nebraska. It ranges from New York and Iowa to Texas and Mexico. Its larval habits are not known, but those of related species feed exposed upon the leaves of beets and other plants. This beetle also injures strawberry leaves, and it is one of the common melon beetles of southern Illinois. It hibernates as an adult, but the number of its suc- cessive broods has never been determined. ' THE THREE-SPOTTED FLEA-BEETLE. Disonycha triangularis Say. (PI. IV., Fig. 2.) This beetle is black except the thorax, which is pale yellowish above and bears three small dots arranged as a triangle, the middle one of the three usually very small. It feeds commonly on leaves of the sugar beet in Illinois, on lamb's-quarters, apparently its favorite food, and also on the spiny pigweed {Amarantus}. It is found throughout the United States and Canada. It hibernates as an adult, occurring not uncommonly in our January collections. We have taken it fre- quently in July, and occasionally also in late August and early fall. Its life history is not known except'by analogy with that of the following species. It occurs throughout the United States east of the Rocky Mountains and in Canada. 464 BULLETIN NO. 60. \AugUSt, THE YELLOW-BACK FLEA-BEETLE. Disonycha xanthomelcena Dalra. {Disonycha collaris Fabr.) (PI. V., VI.) At any time throughout the season from early spring to fall the beet leaves may become riddled with small round holes usually from an eighth to a fourth of an inch in diameter. This very common injury is most frequently done, according to our observation, by the larvae and adults of this common flea-beetle of the beet. The adult insect is about a quarter of an inch long, steel-blue to blackish above, with pale yellow thorax without spots; the larva is grayish white, cylindrical in general form, and also about a quarter of an inch long. The segments are strongly marked, each bearing a row of raised tubercles, with a stiff black hair from the tip of each tubercle. The larvae commonly feed from the under side of the leaf, and drop to the ground when disturbed. When young they merely gnaw the surface, causing discolored spots to appear on the upper side, but when older they eat entirely through the leaf. They are somewhat gregarious, especially when young, keeping together and moving in company from one leaf to another. The species ranges from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic and Gulf coast, and is also reported from Montana and British America. It has been treated as a spinach insect, attacking this plant as it does the beet, and the beetles have been found feeding on lamb's-quarters, pigweed, and a species of chickweed {Stellaria media). There seem to be two broods in a season. The female beetles emerge from their winter quarters in April and May, and lay their eggs in those months and in early June at the bases of the plants infested, on bits of leaf or earth, or even within the earth. The eggs are orange- colored, and placed on end like those of the potato beetle. They begin to hatch in April or May, according to locality, and continue to hatch into June and even into early July. Most of the larvae of this generation have attained their growth and entered the earth for pupa- tion late in June and early in July, and beetles begin to emerge in about a month from the time of the first deposit of the eggs. Eggs deposited June"2oth at Urbana gave origin to the adult July 25th, and others ob- tained June ayth and 28th yielded larvae which began to pupate July i5th and to yield adults July 25th. The beetles of the second genera- tion lay their eggs in late July, August, and early September, and the beetles of this second brood mature before winter sets in. Miss Murt- feldt has found the larvae feeding upon spinach leaves near St. Louis in April and May, the first beetles from these larvae appearing late in the latter month. In the northern half of Illinois the development is some- ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 465 what later. A dipterous parasite {Hypostena barbata) was bred by us in June from the beetle. Disonycha cervicalis Lee. This species is yellow and black like D. xanthomelcena, but differs in the fact that the body is entirely yellow beneath, while in xanthome- Icena the under side of the thorax is black. It is recorded by Bruner as a beet insect in Nebraska. Although it occurs in Georgia we have not yet seen it in Illinois. Crepidodera atriventris Melsh. A tiny clay-colored species, of whose habits little is known. It was found by us on sugar beets in early October, and is recorded by Web- ster from buckwheat September 7th. It is common in Illinois, where it hibernates as an adult, occurring in our collections in December and March. Our specimens have been taken, however, mainly late in April, in May, and in July. THE POTATO FLEA-BEETLE. Epitrix cucumeris Harr. This very small, blackish, faintly shining, minutely punctured spe- cies lives as a larva, so far as known, only on the roots of solanaceous plants (potato, tomato, egg-plant, tobacco, etc.). The beetles are also practically confined to plants of this order for food when these are available, but, nevertheless, infest other plants occasionally. They have been found abundant iri Nebraska on the potato, horse-nettle, and on beets, riddling the leaves of all these plants with minute holes. We have taken them several times in small numbers on sugar beets in Illi- nois. They are also recorded as injurious to celery, sweet-potatoes, raspberry, turnip, cabbage, and petunia, and have been found by us doing much injury to young potatoes by gnawing the sprouts. The larvae are not leaf-miners, as they are often said to be, but feed upon the roots, being especially injurious to those of the potato, tomato, and egg-plant. They bore into potatoes, often making them "pimply." There is probably but one brood in a year, the eggs being laid in June, the larvae feeding in June and July, and pupating in the earth. The adults, issuing in July and August, hibernate, and feed again in spring, disappearing after the eggs are laid in June. They are some- times parasitized by a hymenopterous insect, probably one of the Bra- conidce. The proximity of beets to any of the cultivated food plants mentioned above or to Jamestown weed and other wild members of its favorite family would of course expose the beet field to injury by this insect. 466 BULLETIN NO. 60. \August, Epitrix brevis Schwa rz. (PL VII. , Fig. i.) This very minute, black, strongly punctured flea-beetle is doubtless frequently overlooked on account of its small size. Outside of Illinois it is known to us from Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. It is somewhat common in this state, and many examples have been taken at Urbana in October on sugar beets. It was originally described from specimens taken on the black nightshade {Solanum nigrum). The larva probably feeds on roots of Solanacece. Chcetocnema denticulata 111. This flea-beetle is about an eighth of an inch in length and of a uniform metallic bronze color. It feeds principally upon grass and grain, but has been found injuring beets to some noticeable extent in Nebraska and in Illinois. In the Eastern States it has been reported as injurious to broom-corn, millet, and various grasses. On corn, when abundant, it does conspicuous injury, making minute holes, elongate slits, and white streaks on the leaf. We have seen it very abundant on coarse grasses on the banks of the Ohio River opposite Elizabethtown, 111. It hibernates as an adult and eggs have been obtained from it by us early in July. Its life history is otherwise unknown, the larvae never having been recognized. The beetles were found most abundant on broom-corn near Wash- ington, D. C., during the last week in June, the numbers diminishing after the first week in July. About the middle of August adults, proba- bly of the new brood, have been taken by "us abundantly in Kentucky, and also at. Metropolis, in southern Illinois. It apparently occurs throughout the United States east of the Rocky Mountains, and it is also known from California, Utah, and Montana. THE CORN FLEA-BEETLE. Chcetocntma pulicaria Melsh. A number of specimens of this minute bronzed species were taken by us on sugar beets in October in Urbana. The species has been known mainly as a corn insect in Illinois, where for several seasons it did considerable injury to the leaves, riddling them with minute holes, causing them to wither, and noticeably dwarfing the plants. It has also been taken on sorghum, blue-grass, wheat, strawberry, ragweed, and horse-nettle, and was found with the species preceding injuring broom- corn at Washington, D. C. It occurs from Pennsylvania and North Carolina to Texas and, Colorado, and seems to be especially common in southern Illinois. It hibernates as an adult, and has been found de- ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 467 structive to corn in southern Illinois during the latter half of May, the middle of July, and on various dates thereafter up to the close of the season. Nothing is known of its immature stages, but we have found the adult in winter quarters in November. THE SWEET-POTATO FLEA-BEETLE. Chcetocnema confinis Cr. This minute species has been found by us on sugar beets in Octo- ber, but makes its principal attack on the sweet-potato, morning-glory, and other plants of the order Convolvulacece. It burrows small channels along the leaf veins, causing the leaves to turn brown and die if the weather is unfavorable, or, if the plants are young, often killing them before they have fairly started to grow. It has been found by Webster very abundant and injurious on corn and wheat. We have seen it riddling the leaves of raspberries with small holes, thus destroying as much as twenty per cent, of the foliage. It is most injurious on low lands and near the winter shelters of the beetles. Nothing is known of its life history except that it hibernates as an adult and appears abundantly in May, at which time the sexes copulate, and that it disappears by the first of July but comes in again during the latter part of the month, becoming abundant by August and continuing until the close of the season. It occurs throughout the greater part or all of the United States. THE SMARTWEED FLEA-BEETLE. Systena hudsonias Forst. (PI. VIII., Fig. i.) This beetle is bluish-black throughout, about an eighth of an inch in length, and more elongate than most of the small flea-beetles, ap- proximating in form the cucumber beetles {Diabrotica). It occurs everywhere east of the Rocky Mountains. It has been found abundant on sugar beets in New York, and has occasionally been noticed by us on the same plant at Urbana. No serious damage has been noticed, however, the species feeding primarily on smartweed and dock, and also infesting the daisy, fleabane, plantain, ragweed, goldenrod, catnip, Brunella vidgaris, and the wild verbenas. The adults of this species are commonest in midsummer, gradually diminishing in number, and wholly disappearing before winter. Although the life history is not definitely known and the immature stages have not been identified, the species is probably single-brooded, the eggs being laid in the fall. 468 BULLETIN NO. 60. \AllgUSt, THE RED-HEADED FLEA-BEETLE. Systena frontalis Fabr. (PI. VIII., Fig. 2.) A somewhat elongate insect, about an eighth of an inch long, with a narrow thorax, resembling the preceding species in form and general appearance, and bluish black like that, except that the head is pale red- dish. It has been reported from New York as riddling the leaves of garden beets to an extent to give the field a brownish look. It has also been seen in moderate numbers on beets in Illinois and Nebraska. Other cultivated plants are occasionally infested, unusual injury having been reported to the leaves of the gooseberry, grape, and pear. It is especially a smartweed beetle, but feeds also on lamb's-quarters and on one of the mallows {Hibiscus militarist . It seems to be most abundant in August and September, but its life history is unknown. In the single instance of reported injury the attack was arrested by spraying with Paris green. THE PALE-STRIPED FLEA-BEETLE. Systena tceniata Melsh. (Systena blanda Say. ) This is one of the most abundant and generally injurious of the flea-beetles and infests an unusual variety of plants, most of them abundant weeds. It is very destructive in beet fields especially when unseasonable weather prevents an early and rapid growth of the plant. In 1899, for example, sugar- beet planting was largely delayed in Illinois until the middle or latter part of May. To- wards the middle of June, when these later plantings were very small, the adults of this species were emerging in great numbers and, concentrating .on the young beets, com- pletely destroyed many fields of this plant, Fig. 39 . The Pale-striped Flea- necessitating a second and sometimes a third beetle, Systena tceniata, adult. planting. The beetles commonly do not eat quite through the leaf of the beet, but gnaw pit-like excavations on both surfaces until young plants if severely infested blacken, shrivel up, and disappear, whole fields being thus laid completely bare. If the plant survives, the epidermis of the leaf opposite to the injury dries up and breaks away, a small hole thus resulting. This injury was much great- est, according to our observation, on beets following or adjoining clover sod. The principal damage to beets by this insect was done the third 1900.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 469 week in June, but some of the fields replanted June 25th were also de- stroyed. This species occurs throughout the northern part of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains, from southern New England to Georgia, and is also abundant in the extreme southwest. It has destroyed beets in New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Indiana, -J^^i Illinois, Nebraska, and Colorado, and has done serious local injury to various other crops including carrots, corn, fruit-grafts, toma- ^ --T^p. L 7- toes, clover, potatoes, melons, beans, strawberries, blackberries, Irj - alfalfa, lettuce, parsnip, egg-plant, summer savory, sweet-potatoes, -4 " i- clover, and the cotton plant. Lint- ner records it as an oak insect, and IL- it is destructive to a great variety of weeds including ragweed, night- shade, pigweed, cocklebur, pla*n- tain, purslane, etc. --S9 W$r=^ I* s l^ e history is imperfectly known. All stages of the insect have been found and described, but the number of generations an- nually has not been ascertained with certainty, and the stage of hibernation is somewhat in doubt. In our own extensive collections Fig. 40. The Pale-striped Flea-beetle, Systena tieni- ata: larva, top view, greatly enlarged. Fig. 41. The Pale- striped Flea-beetle, Sys- tena tceniata: larva.side the imagO Of this insect has been view, greatly enlarged. very abundant in June and July, especially in the former month, and has gradually diminished in number until September, none appearing later than September nor earlier than June. In many winter collections made for the purpose of accumulating lists of hibernating insects .S 1 . tceniata has not once occurred. Furthermore, larvae collected by us from roots of corn in Champaign county, 111., May iyth had partly, but not altogether, transformed to the adult on the lyth of June, the pupa stage being likewise present at that time. Eggs have been laid, accord- ing to Chittenden, from June loth to July 8th. We find, consequently, at present no satisfactory evidence of more than one brood or of the hibernation of the adult. From the facts now on record it would seem most likely that larval hibernation is the rule; that the June and July appearance of the beetles is due to the development of the adult at that 470 BULLETIN NO. 60. \_A season; and that the midsummer eggs give origin to the larvae which pass the winter in the earth. The food plants of the larvae are doubtless very imperfectly known. Thus far the larva has been found feeding only upon sprouting kernels of corn in the earth and the roots of lamb's- quarters {Chenopodiuni) and Stramonium (Jamestown weed). The facts stated above with regard to the relation of this beetle in the beet field to the growth of clover makes it seem likely that the larva may also infest that plant. The larva is a slender, stiff, sluggish insect, about an eighth of an inch in length, yellowish white, and narrowing gradually from behind forward. The sutures of the thorax form a peculiar X-mark, and the anal segment tapers to a prolonged process with a crown of short spines and four long spinose hairs at its apex. "The egg is elliptical but somewhat inconstant in outline, about two and a half times as long as wide, and opaque, light buff yellow in color. The sculpture of the surface, as observed under a moderately high power of microscope, appears to be granulated, but under a higher lens it seems to be divided into very minute and rather ill-defined shal- low concave hexagonal areas arranged in sevens inclosed in hexagons. Length, 0.60 to 0.68 mm.; width, 0.25 to 0.27 mm."* Longitarsus melanurus Melsh. These minute brownish elongate flea-beetles, only about a twelfth of an inch in length, were found in small number on sugar beets in Urbana in October. Davis reports it as the com- monest of the celery flea-beetles. It occurs from the Dakotas and Canada south to Kansas, Missouri, and North Carolina. It hibernates as an adult, and has been taken by us in that stage from winter quarters November i5th and March 2d. It has been most abundant with us, however, in May, The immature stages and life history are unknown. Fig. 42. Longitarsus tnelanurus. (Davis) June, and July. Glyptina brunnea Horn. (PI. VII., Fig. 2.) This minute brown species, slightly shorter than the preceding, was found on sugar beets in Illinois in July and October, quite abundantly in the latter month. Its known range includes Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas, Illinois, and Wisconsin. Its life history is unknown. *Chittenden, in Bull. No. 23, N. S.. U. S. Dcpt. Agr., Div. Ent, p. 24. 1900.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 471 THE CABBAGE FLEA-BEETLE. Phyllotreta vittata Fabr. This minute insect, from a tenth to a twelfth of an inch in length, black with two longitudinal yellowish stripes narrower in the middle and sometimes broken into four yellow spots, is a destructive enemy to crucif- erous plants, especially to cabbage, turnips, and radishes. The worst in- jury is done by the larvae, which live upon the roots, but the leaves are often very badly pitted or riddled by the beetles. Beets are not injured, so far as known, by this beetle to any serious extent, although the adults occur upon them occasionally in considerable num- bers. The species hibernates as an imago, occurring in our collections in November, December, and March. Plants are likely to be injured by them in the latter part of May; larvae are produced late in May and June; and beetles are developed from these in the latter part of August. The species is doubtless single-brooded, at least in central Illinois. Fig. 43. The Cabbage Flea-beetle, Phyllo- trtta vittata: a, larva; b, adult. (Riley, U. S. Dept of Agriculture). Phyllotreta decipiens Horn. This is an insect of the far West, inhabiting Washington and Ore- gon, and reported injurious to beets, radishes, turnips, potatoes, etc., in the latter state. It has the general appearance of P. vittata, except that its black color is varied only by a short indistinct yellowish line on each wing-cover, this, indeed, being sometimes wanting. THE WESTERN CABBAGE FLEA-BEETLE. Phyllotreta albionica Lee. This species is common in Colorado, occupying there the place of P. vittata in the Eastern States. The adults are very small, only about a fifteenth of an inch in length, black above, with a brassy luster, and without longitudinal stripes. They are reported by Bruner as injuring sugar beets in Ne- braska; and by Gillette as infesting cauliflower and Fig. 44. The Western Cabbage Flea-beetle, other cruciferous plants and the bee-plant (Cleome Phyllotreta albionica. integrifolid). The immature stages and life history (Riley, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture.) are unknown. 472 BULLETIN NO. 60. \_AllgUSt, THE RHUBARB FLEA-BEETLE. Psylliodes punctulata Melsh. This and the following species are about a twelfth of an inch in length, of a bronzy luster, elongate-oval in form, and readily recognized by the curious mode of attachment of the hind tarsi. P. punctulata attacks beet, cucumber, and radish leaves. We have noticed it several times on sugar beets-in Illinois, but never in numbers to be seriously injurious. Its favorite food is apparently the rhubarb leaf, in which it burrows small superficial pits about a tenth of an inch in diameter. It is apparently single-brooded, the hibernating beetles appearing in May and disappearing in June. The larvae are said to bore the stems of succulent plants, but their depredations have attracted na special atten- tion. This species ranges from Canada to New Jersey, and westward to the Pacific coast. Psylliodes convexior Lee. The range of this species is more southerly than that of the preced- ing, extending from the Pacific coast to Florida and the District of Columbia. Like P. punctulata it is somewhat elongate-oval, about a twelfth of an inch in length, with a bronzy luster, but broader and more convex than the preceding species. The beetles are said to be very abundant and injurious to beets in parts of Nebraska. They are re- corded as injuring corn in Indiana, eating pits in the leaves and not perforating them, and also as feeding on panic-grass. THE EUROPEAN BEET-TORTOISE-BEETLE. Cassida nebulosa Linn. This is a European beet insect of considerable importance which has lately made its appearance in California as an entomological rarity, If it should maintain itself in this country it is likely to require the at- tention of beet growers, who should consequently be forewarned against it. Its principal European food is lamb's-quarters (Chenopodium albuni) and other plants of the Chenopodium family, but in the absence of these it turns its attentions to beets, sometimes devastating large areas by eat- ing out the parenchyma of the leaf, leaving only the principal veins. In this country it is said to feed on morning-glories, sweet-potatoes, and Irish potatoes. This species hibernates as an imago, and lays its eggs, in groups of several, in large numbers on the under side of the leaves. The larvae, which feed in groups of three or four on the under side of the leaves, riddling them with small holes, are oval, flat, and spinose, light green with white markings, and with two long tails turned over the back and 1900.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 473 supporting a protecting shield composed of cast skins and excrement. The pupa is similar .in appearance, but lacks the elongate tails, and is attached to the under side of the leaf. The beetles are turtle-shape, pale rusty brown with dark mottlings. They feed on the upper side of the leaves, gnawing the surface but not eating through the leaf. There are two broods of beetles in a year, one appearing in August and the other in the fall. This beetle is little likely to injure beets if its usual food plants are suppressed in the field. THE GRAPE-VINE COLASPIS. Colaspis brunnea Fabr. (PI. IX., Fig. i.) This common beetle, ranging from Nebraska to the Atlantic States and Canada, has frequently been taken on the sugar beet in Nebraska and Illinois. It is a very general feeder in the beetle stage, injuring grape, strawberry, beans, buckwheat, corn-silk, clover, willow blossoms, and the leaves and blossoms of many other plants. It is said to begin its injury by making a small round hole, which it enlarges until, perhaps, the entire leaf is eaten. The larva a whitish cylindrical grub an eighth of an inch in length and with a yellowish brown head has been found feeding upon the roots of timothy and Indian corn in central Illinois, and is also widely known as a strawberry root-worm. It appears to be primarily a grass-root insect in the larval stage, attacking other crops when these are substituted for grass on infested land. It lives as a beetle during the summer months, ranging in our collections from June 22d to September i4th, but being most abundant in July and August. We have not found it at all in winter even in strawberry beds where it had been previously abundant. The eggs are doubtless laid in summer and fall, and the time at which injury to corn begins indicates the presence of the larvae in the ground quite early in May. The species is evidently single-brooded, and probably hibernates as a larva partly grown. THE SOUTHERN CORN ROOT WORM. Diabrotica 12-punctata Oliv. This notorious pest includes the sugar beet in its large dietary, which contains also leaves, silk and pollen, and unripe kernels of corn; unripe grains of wheat; petals of various Fig. 45. The Southern Com Root Worm ' DMrotica "-****". ^uit. 474 BULLETIN NO. 60. [August, garden flowers; the leaves of small grain, fruit-trees, garden vegetables, and of some weeds; and, lastly, certain molds. The beetles are common on sugar beets throughout the season, and have frequently been found gnawing away the surface or making irregular holes in beet leaves in Illinois, Nebraska, and Oregon. The larvae are subterranean, living on the roots of corn, but especially also on those of coarse sedges of the genera Scirpus and Cyperus. The life history of this insect is in confusion. The beetle appears in early spring, increases in apparent numbers with the advancing season, becoming most abundant in August, and continues in gradually diminish- ing numbers until October or November. The data, published and un- published, in our possession, are insufficient to separate the succession into distinct broods. THE STRIPED CUCUMBER BEETLE. Diabrotica vittata Fabr. This well-known melon and cucumber pest feeds when in the beetle stage on a large variety of plants, among which, according to observa- tions made in the beet fields of Nebraska and Oregon, the sugar beet is Fig. 46. The Striped Cucumber Beetle, Diabrotica vittata: a, adult; b, larva; c, pupa; d, last segment of larva. (Chittenden, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture.) Fig. 47. The Striped Cucumber Beetle, Diabrotica uittata; a, top view of head and prothorax of larva; b, leg of same. (Chittenden, U. S. Dept of Agriculture.) to be included. It is, like the preceding species, subterranean as a larva, feeding in that stage upon the roots of cucumbers, squashes, melons, and other plants of the cucumber family. The adults feed not only on these plants but also on beans, peas, and ripe apples; on the leaves, silk, pollen, and unripe kernels of corn; on the blossoms of fruit-, and other, trees; and on the sunflower, the goldenrod, and other Composite. We have found them eating the blossoms and riddling the ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 475 leaves of the horse-chestnut in early spring. The species winters in the beetle stage, coming out from its hibernation quarters in April or May, and attacking its favorite food plants even before they appear above ground. The beetles of the following brood begin to appear about the second week of July and continue abundant until October. The details of the life history are not clearly known and the number of generations annually has not been definitely determined. Fig. 48. The Striped Cu- cumber Beetle, Diabrotica vittata: a, egg; 6, portion of its surface greatly enlarged. (Chittenden, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture.) THE NORTHERN CORN ROOT WORM. Diabrotica longicornis Say. The grass-green adult beetle of this species is more or less abundant according to the kind of agriculture prevalent, as it bre'eds, so far as known, only in fields of Indian corn, and becomes numerous \. there only where the same land is *=^cn=^=c^ planted to corn for several suc- cessive years. It is abroad as a beetle during the late summer and fall, and dies before winter, leaving eggs in the corn field to hatch the following spring. It lives upon a considerable variety of the softer and more succulent vegetable tissues of the latter part of the season. Although it has never been known to eat beet leaves it is frequently seen upon them, especially in the vicinity Of corn fields, and the fact that in Nebraska it has sometimes riddled the leaves of radishes and turnips makes it seem likely that a closer observation of it in the beet^field would show an occasional similar injury there. Fig. 49. * ratfc * lon The Northern Corn Root Worm, Dia- or ""- adult - THE FRENCH BUGS. Monoxia puncticollis Say. Monoxia consputa Lee. (J/. guttulata Lee.). Monoxia puncticollis has seriously injured the beet crop in New Mexico. It inhabits seacoasts and inland salty places, occurring. along the Atlantic coast, in Texas, and in California, and inland in the south- western United States as far as Colorado. The larva feeds on the sea- 476 BULLETIN NO. 60. \August, blite {Suada linearis). A New Mexico correspondent of the U. S. De- partment of Agriculture, Division of Entomology, * says the beetles lay their eggs on the under side of the sugar beet, these hatching in about six days. The larvse feed on the beet leaf. Hundreds occurred on a single plant, causing it to shrivel and die. After about nine or ten days, they enter the earth, change to pupae, and a few days later the beetles appear. Monoxia consputa injures sugar beets to a serious extent in the West. It ranges from Arizona and California northward to the Dakotas and the northwestern United States. It is quite common on the Pacific coast, and seems to be the most troublesome beet pest in Oregon. These beetles eat small holes in the leaf, sometimes leaving only a net- work of veins, checking the growth of the beet plants, or killing them entirely. An application that was successful in killing these and other leaf-feeding insects was composed of half a pound of Paris green and three pounds of whale-oil soap in fifty gallons of water. The whale-oil soap was probably necessary to make the spray adhere to the plants. GR A SSHOPPERS. Acrididce. and Locustidce. Notwithstanding the abundance of grasshoppers everywhere in beet fields, and the considerable list of species occurring there, their injuries to beets are not usually serious but are mainly confined to fields adjacent to grass lands in which grasshoppers have bred in extraordinary num- bers. An instance of injury under these conditions came to our notice in July, 1899. One of the fields of the Illinois Sugar Refining Company, near Pekin, 111., was considerably injured at this time by the common red-legged grasshopper {Pezotettix femur-rubrum Fig. 55), which ate large irregular holes in the leaves, or cut broad deep notches out of their edges, leaving only the larger veins to hold the leaves together. The two families commonly confused under the general name of "grasshopper" may be easily distinguished by their antennae. Those of the meadow grasshopper {Locustidce) are many-jointed, slender, and much longer than the body (Fig. 57, 59) and those of the Acrididcz (often called locusts by entomologists) are much shorter than the body and comparatively thick (Fig. 50 56). The female of the Locustida (Fig. 57) has projecting backward from the tip of the abdomen a com- pressed sword-shaped organ which is used for placing the egg in or about plants, while the female of the Acrididcz has at the end of the abdomen four stout blunt structures with curved tips which, brought together on the middle line, form a thick conical tip to the body, used in forcing the abdomen into the earth for the deposit of the egg mass. *Bull. No. 18, N. S., p. 95. 1900.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 477 The young of both families differ from adults principally in the absence of developed wings. A few of our grasshoppers hatch in fall and become full grown in spring. Most of them, including all those really injurious to beets, pass the winter in the egg, and, hatching in the spring, undergo their succes- sive molts during the summer, and reach the winged stage in the latter part of the summer and early fall. Most of these summer species con- tinue to feed until cold weather closes their career. As a general rule, whenever grasshoppers are destructively abun- dant one year they are present for some years following in insignificant numbers only, a fact explained by the numbers and powers of reproduc- tion of their parasites and other enemies. Late in the season adults are often seen with small, bright red, egg-like bodies attached at the bases of the wings, and sometimes elsewhere on the body. These are para- sitic mites, which, like ticks, suck the blood of their insect host in the fall, and, in the following spring, after undergoing a striking metamor- phosis, devour the egg masses of the grasshoppers in the ground. Long thread-like, milk-white hairworms (Mermis} are often found in the abdo- mens of grasshoppers, living there as internal parasites, and escaping after maturity to enter the earth, where they pass the winter, pair, and produce myriads of eggs the following spring. The young from these infest the grasshoppers of the year and assist greatly in the reduction of any excess of numbers. Larvse of a Tachina fly often occur within the body when grasshoppers are very numerous, and every specimen so infested perishes before reproducing. Deadly fungus parasites also infest and kill them, and larvse of the common blister-beetles devour their eggs in the earth. If injuries by grasshoppers reach a stage or threaten a result which calls for treatment in the beet field their numbers may best be reduced by poisons mixed with bran mash. For this purpose stir thor- oughly five pounds of arsenic into half a barrel of bran (or in this ratio for smaller quantities), dissolve in a pail of water an amount of sugar equal in weight to the arsenic, and stir the sweetened water into the bran, adding more water, as necessary, until a good mash is made. This should then be distributed in handfuls to the part of the field in- fested by grasshoppers, which will prefer it to the beet itself, for which, indeed, they have no very eager appetite. Injuries by invasion from without should, however, be prevented when practicable by watching adjacent grass lands, and, if grasshoppers appear on them in unusual numbers, by using the so-called " hopperdozer " for their destruction, according to methods frequently published and generally well known. Spring plowing of grass-lands and their subsequent treatment with the disc harrow will effectually destroy the eggs in the earth. The common short-horned grasshoppers {Acridid(z) are thicker 478 BULLETIN NO. 60. [August, and heavier, and are armed with a thicker crust than the Locustidce, or slender-horned group. The former are usually neutral blackish brown or gray in general color. Some of them have pointed foreheads, the face slanting downwards and backwards. The yellow grasshopper {Stenobotftrus curtipennis^) is an example of this form (Fig. 50). The others have rounded foreheads, with the faces nearly vertical. Among these are two well-marked groups. In one there is a distinct slender conical spine midway between the fore-legs on the under side; in the other there is little or no trace of this spine. The black-winged grass- hopper {Dissosteira Carolina, Fig. 51), known by its black under wings broadly bordered with yellowish, is the only one of the group without the spine which we have noticed frequently in Illinois beet fields. There are other common Illinois species of this group, however, which may yet be found to feed on beets. Of the remaining genera, those possessing the prothoracic spine, only Schistocerca, Campylacantha, and Melanoplus have been reported from beet fields. Schist ocerca contains very large species, some of which are common in central and southern Illinois, but th,e species (S. alutacea Fig 52) known to be injurious to the beet is not often seen in Illinois. It is a brownish yellow species with a pale stripe down the middle of the back, usually much blotched with red on the fore wings and abdomen, and with a closely placed row of red or blackish points along the hinder edge of each abdominal segment, above. Cam- pylacantha olivacea, a species with rudimentary wings, is found from Nebraska to Texas. The genus Melanoplus contains our commonest grasshoppers. There are five well known species on our list of those infesting the beet, two larger ones (bivittatus and differ entialis}, about a quarter of an inch through at the base of the fore wings, which latter are not evidently dotted with small spots, and three smaller ones, about an eighth of an inch thick, with the fore wings sprinkled with reddish or blackish dots, at least along the middle. The two-striped grasshop- per {Melanoplus bivittatus Fig. 54) has a yellowish line on each side of the back along the angle between the upper and lateral surfaces when the wings are closed. The olive grasshopper (J/. differential Fig. 53), a very common Illinois species, is a heavy species of a nearly uniform dark olive color. Melanoplus femur-rubrum (Fig. 55), the abundant "red-legged grasshopper" of the beet fields, and everywhere else in Illinois, has the shortest wings of the three smaller species, these reach- ing when closed little beyond the tip of the body; and if the tip of the male abdomen be carefully viewed from behind, it will show a nearly straight upper edge. In the other two small species, the closed wings reach considerably beyond the tip of the body, and the tip of the male abdomen is distinctly notched above. One of these is M. spretus (Fig. 56), the Rocky Mountain grasshopper, which has never invaded IpOO.J ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 479 Illinois; the other is a moderately common Illinois species, M. atlanis. The meadow grasshoppers are distinguished from the other long- horned green grasshoppers comprising the family Locustidce by the point of the forehead ending in a narrow but very blunt and somewhat wart- like protuberance between the bases of the antennae. They belong to two genera, Orchelimum and Xiphidium, corresponding somewhat in size and variety to the two groups of larger and smaller species of the genus Melanoplus. These also have a spine between the bases of the fore legs. In Orchelimum, this is quite short and the sword-shaped ovi- positor of the female is rather broad and noticeably curved (Fig. 57). In the smaller species, those belonging to Xiphidium, the spine is long and slender, and the ovipositor is straight or very little curved. The two species of Xiphidium on our list are short winged. They may be separated as follows: In X. femorale the wings cover about half the length of the abdomen in the female, and two-thirds of it in the male; the ovipositor is much shorter than the body and a little curved throughout; and the terminal points of the male abdomen are straight and usually parallel. X. strictum has very short wings, less than half the length of the abdomen, while the ovipositor is very long, exceeding the length of the body. The terminal points of the male curve slightly inwards. THE YELLOW GRASSHOPPER. Stenobothrus curtipennis Harr. This trim little species, yellowish olive above and yellow beneath, has short narrow wings and yellowish hind legs with black knees. It is quite common throughout Illinois and has been reported among the more numerous species on sugar beets in Iowa. Al- though wintering as an egg, it matures at an unusually early date the following year, adults having been taken as early as June 23d. It becomes common in July, and continues until October. THE BLACK-WINGED GRASSHOPPER, Dissosteira Carolina Linn. This is a rather large species, very common through- out Illinois, found by Bruner eating leaves of the sugar beet in July. Its mottled brown color, varying to yel- , . , tl _ ., , Fig. 50. The Yellow lowish or gray, often with obscure cross bands on the Grasshopper, steno- wings, makes it inconspicuous when at rest, but it is 6o ' Aru * curtipennis. distinguishable at once in flight by its black hind wings strongly bordered with yellow. The median dorsal ridge extending BULLETIN NO. 60. \A UgUSty Fig. 51. The Black-winged Grasshopper, Dissosteira Carolina. (Lugger.) backward from the head is dis- tinct and sharp, while in our other common species from the beet there is little trace of such a ridge. This grasshopper matures early, having been taken from June 25th until fall. It pairs early in August and deposits eggs in August and September. Trimerotropis latifasciata Scudd. This species has been sev- eral times reported as injurious to the sugar beet in western Nebraska, but is not found in Illinois. Spharagemon tzquale Scudd. This is a widespread insect in Nebraska, where it is reported as feeding upon the sugar beet, but not in numbers to make it especially injurious. It is not known to occur in Illinois. Schistocerca alutacea Harr. {Acridium aiutaceum Harr., and A. emarginatum Uhl.) This species is generally rare in Illinois, becoming more common westward. It is mentioned by Os- born among the grasshoppers most numerous on sugar beets in Iowa. It is found from July to October. THE LUBBER GRASSHOPPER. Melanoplus differentialis Thos. This is a very common and widely distributed grasshopper, its normal range extending from the Pacific to Indiana, and south to Mexico. Its uniform dark olive color and large size, taken in con- nection with its distinctive features mentioned above, will readily serve to identify it. Next to the red- legged species it is our most injuri- Fig . 52 . Schiftocerca alutacea . (Lugger .) ipoo.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 481 ous grasshopper. It lays its eggs in damp shady ground during the latter part of the afternoon. As many as one hundred and seventy-one eggs have been count- ed in a single mass. Sometimes only one such cluster is laid by a single female, but two or even three may be deDOSited at inter- Fig. 53. The Lubber Grasshopper, Melanoplus differ entialis. vals. The adult stage is reached about the first of August, and the eggs are laid from the middle of August to October. THE TWO-STRIPED GRASSHOPPER. Melanophis bivittatus Say. This species, common in Illinois,is confined mainly to the Mississippi Valley, not occurring on the Atlantic or Pacific slopes or in the extreme northwest. It may be recognized at once by the yellowish dorsal stripes on each side of the middle, along the angle between the Fig. 54, The Two-striped Grasshopper. Melanoplus , , , ., , , attarkerl bivittatus. (Riley. U. S. Dept. of Agriculture.) 3e - U " aS atlaCK beets in low grounds or Reside rank growths of grass or clover, but has never been seriously injurious to that crop. The eggs are placed in any compact soil, such as old roads, closely- cropped pastures, and prairie sod. Adults usually begin to appear about July ist. Eggs are apparently laid in September, and have been observed to hatch in March. THE COMMON RED-LEGGED GRASSHOPPER. Melanoplus fettytr-rubrum DeG. This is the commonest 'Illinois grasshopper, and the most abundant of its kind in fields of beets. It closely resembles the western destructive grasshopper (Melanoplus spretus}, and also another species of the genus (atlanis*) which occurs in Illinois but which is much less generally known than the other two. The native home t ,-, , .. Fig. 55. The Common Red-legged Grass- of the destructive western grasshopper, hopper> Mt ia.piu,f tm *r-rbrum. or Rocky Mountain locust, is the mountain country of the Rocky Mountain system; atlanis breeds mainly 482 BULLETIN NO. 60. [August, in the lesser mountains and hills of the eastern part of the country; while the present species prefers relatively low and level territory, being also most at home in the eastern part of the United States. The destruc- tive spretus never reaches Illinois; the long-winged atlanis is common in the hilly region of the southern end of this state; while the shorter- winged, red-legged species is abundant everywhere. It does not tend io migrate in large swarms like both the others, although when very abun- dant locally, nights to short distances are sometimes made in numbers to suggest the flying swarms of the western locust. A single female red- legged grasshopper may lay approximately one hundred eggs in three or four separate masses, deposited in the ground usually in grass-lands and in the firmer parts of fields, such as paths and roadways and trampled spots in pastures. This species is single-brooded. Most of the eggs hatch in May, and the young feed and grow through June and July, getting wings about seventy days after hatching. Occasional adults may appear as early as the latter part of June, but the great part of the generation matures in August, and from this time on the perfect insects are most abundant. They continue their depredations until arrested by the approach of winter. Melanoplus atlanis Riley. This species, inhabits especially the Eastern States, and seems to prefer hilly and wooded country. It is much like the western destruc- tive grasshopper in structure and habits, and in its tendency to migrate when very numerous. It is at times very destructive, especially in New England. It is common in the hilly region of southern Illinois, and is taken at times in other parts of the state. It lays from two to four egg masses and its period of development is about eighty days. The adults are nearly a month earlier in their appearance than those of the red-legged species, being common- est in July and August. THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN GRASSHOPPER. fir Melanoplus spretus Thos. This, the most de- structive American spe- cies, is so thoroughly well Fig. 56. The Rocky Mountain Grasshopper, Melanoplus known throughout the TC- spretus: a, a, a, females ovipositing; b, egg pod removed from r , j , . .-, . . ground, with end broken open, showing eggs; c, eggs; d, e, egg masses in the ground; f, egg mass completed and covered up. Special treatment here is uncalled for, particularly as it does not occur in Illinois.. ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 483 Campylacantha olivacea Scudd. (Pezotettix olivaceus Bruner.) This species ranges from Nebraska to Texas, but does not occur in Illinois. It is reported as rare in eastern and middle Nebraska, but it is occasionally found there in beet fields, and also feeding on sunflower {Hclianthus} and lamb's-quarters. THE LARGER MEADOW GRASSHOPPER. Orchelimum vulgare Harr. This is one of the long-horned species {Locustida), the commonest of its genus in Illinois. By means of its sword-like overpositor it lays Fig. 57. The Larger Meadow Grasshopper, Orchelimum vulgare, female. (Lugger.) Fig. 59. The Larger Meadow Grasshopper, Orchelimum vulgare, male. (Lugger.) Fig. 58. The Larger Meadow Grass- hopper, Orchelimum vulgare: eggs in stem of corn tassel, with single egg in outline. its eggs in the pith of a great variety of soft plants, from one to several in a place according to the size of the* stem. The clusters are placed at intervals of about an inch in a single row which usually takes a slightly spiral direction along the stem. The cuticle is torn up with the jaws before the eggs are inserted, a row of roughened fibrous spots thus marking the location of the eggs. These are especially common in corn stalks just below the tassel, or in stalks of weeds, elder twigs, and the like. They are usually laid in the first half of September, but hatch somewhat late in the following season. The young are most abundant in July and August, and adults begin to appear by the end of July. This species seems to prefer upland localities, especially fields of clover and timothy. It has been often seen by us on beets. 4 8 4 BULLETIN NO. 60. \A UgUSt, THE SMALLER MEADOW GRASSHOPPERS. Xiphidium. Specimens of Xiphidium nemorale Scudd. were taken on sugar beets in Urbana in October, 1898, and those of X. strictum Scudd. were found feeding on beets July 26th and August ipth, young at the former dates and adults at the latter. Fig. 60. Clivina impressifrons. OTHER LEAF-EATING BEETLES* Clivina impressifrons Lee. This little ground-beetle about a quarter of an inch long, recognizable by the accom- panying figure, (Fig. 60), may receive mere mention as a beet insect, having been once seen by us in small numbers enlarging a small excavation on the petiole of a beet leaf. The same species had previously been seen bur- rowing freely into seed corn in the ground. THE BEET CARRION-BEETLE. Silpha opaca Linn. This insect, a member of a genus, and indeed of a family, nearly all of which feed upon decayed animal matter, is itself a vege- tarian, and has become noted in Europe as perhaps the worst insect pest of the beet field. It was brought into America at least twenty years ago, but is still quite uncommon in the United States. It was re- ported by Dr. Horn from Cali- fornia in 1880, and in 1891 Prof. Bruner found it several times in the beet fields of Ne- braska. In 1893 he reported again that it had been several times taken in Nebraska feeding In England, upon beet leaves. Fig. 61. The Beet Carrion-beetle, Silpha opaca: i, 2, young larvae feeding on beet leaf; 3, 4, larvae; 5, adult beetle in flight; 6, adult at rest. (From publishers of Curtis's "Farm Insects.") France, and Austria large num- bers of the larvae of this species appear in the early part of the season in the beet field eating away the parenchyma of the leaf, usually *The flea-beetles and a few other beetles doing a similar injury to the beet have already been treated on pp. 460-476. 1900.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 485 at night, and leaving only the skeleton of the veins or wholly destroying the young leaves as fast as they appear. The adult insect is black, with nearly parallel sides, the body flat and thin, about three-fourths of an inch in length, with more or less marked parallel ridges on the wing- covers. The scaly looking larvae taper from before backwards and have something the appearance of the well known sow-bugs or cellar bugs {OniscidcK). The beetles hibernate, and lay their eggs in June, and these hatch in about five days thereafter in England and France about July ist. The young mature within a fortnight. In about a month from the time the eggs were deposited the adult beetles emerge. Silpha bituberosa Lee. This American species, our nearest ally to the beet carrion-beetle of Europe, is a western and northern species, ranging from the British Northwest Territory as far south as Kansas. In British America the larvae were seen by Mr. Fletcher in 1893 feeding on a variety of weeds, particularly upon those belonging to the Chenopodium family, and also on squash and pumpkin vines. In breeding-cages they ate freely of the leaves of beet and lamb's-quarters, feeding by night and hiding by day. The larvae are black and shining, half to three-quarters of an inch long and a fifth of an inch wide, convex above, flattened below, and tapering towards each end. The beetle is dull black, with dusky hairs on the thorax, of oval outline, broader than S. opaca, which is a com- paratively elongate species. Fletcher found the larvse living in his breed- ing-cages from June 5th to July i2th, and adults emerging from July 6th to 24th. Although this species has not yet been known to injure beet plants in the field, the foregoing facts make it an object of interest to economic entomologists engaged in the study of insect injuries to the beet. BLISTER-BEE TLES. Meloidce. This family of insects, readily distinguishable by their elongate- cylindrical bodies, comparatively soft wing-covers, small thorax, and rounded head attached to the thorax by a comparatively slender neck, receive their common name from the fact that when crushed or roughly handled they cause a blister on the skin due to an irritant oil secreted by the beetle. They are best known to ordinary agriculture by their injuries to the tomato and potato, especially to the latter. Previous to the advent of the hard-shelled, thick-bodied Colorado potato-beetle these blister-beetles were the principal insect enemy of the potato, and are frequently referred to now as the "old-fashioned potato-beetle.'' There are several American species of this family, some striped with black 486 BULLETIN NO. 60. {August, and yellow, others black or gray, and still others uniformly colored with metallic blue, green, or coppery. They move commonly in companies, devouring their food plants as they go. Their injuries to vegetation are confined to the beetle stage, the food habits of the larvae being very different from those of the beetle. The young of some species are para- sites on bees and eat their eggs and honey, but most of them are bene- ficial as larvae, feeding on the egg masses of the grasshoppers buried in the ground. They hatch from eggs laid by the female blister-beetle in small cavities burrowed in the loose ground among grasshopper eggs. Most of them pass the winter in the larval stage, coming out as adult beetles the following summer. In the beet field these insects may either be poisoned with arsenical applications, killed by knocking them off into water covered with a film of kerosene, or driven out of the field by threshing the infested plants with brush or wisps of straw. Curiously, if the commonest species are subjected to this last treatment they are not likely to return. On ac- count of the beneficial habits of their larvae it is best, as a rule, not to destroy the beetles unless really necessary to preserve the crop. Indeed they are commonly abundant only when grasshoppers have themselves become abundant enough to do considerable harm, the blister-beetle then largely contributing to the suppression of the grasshopper out- break. A pound of Paris green or London purple stirred up with an equal weight of lime in two hundred gallons of water has been found sufficient to destroy the beetles without injury to the leaf, at an expense for the insecticide of only two cents per acre. With an ordinary hand force- pump working in a barrel on a cart, the cost of treatment was about a dollar an acre, but with a specially constructed sprayer carrying a num- ber of nozzles, one for each row, Osborn thought that the expense could be reduced one half. Megetra vittata is a black western species with very large exposed abdomen and a short pair of strongly diverging wing-covers bearing fine reddish markings. Macrobasis unicolor (Fig. 62) is uniform ashy gray, sometimes darker. The gray specimens are almost indistinguishable by the naked eye from'the less common Epicauta cinerea, and the dark ones might be confused with E. pennsylvanica, but they differ clearly from both of these in the larger relative size of the second joint of the anten- nae. Epicauta maculaia (Fig. 63) is a western species, gray, finely dot- ted with black. E. vittata (Fig. 64) is the common yellow and black striped species, with either four or six black stripes above. E. cinerea is uniform gray, distinguished from our common M. unicolor as already stated; E. marginata (Fig. 65), common in Illinois, is black above with a narrow gray edge all around each wing-cover, except at base. E. pennsylvanica (Fig. 66), very common in Illinois, is solid black ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 487 throughout. Cantharis nuttalli (Fig. 67) has brilliant metallic colors coppery, green, or blue. Like E. maculata it is a western species. Megetra vittata Lee. This insect is reported by Cockerell to injure sugar beets in New Mexico and also in Arizona, and is probably in the larval stage a bee parasite and honey eater. THE COMMON GRAY BLISTER-BEETLE. Macrobasis unicolor Kirby. This beetle, although common in Illinois, has not yet been found by us in the beet field, but in Nebraska it -is reported as injurious to the sugar beet. It in- habits the entire western United States and is especially destructive to plants of the bean family, including beans, peas, clover, black locust, honey-locust, wild indigo, lupines, and Astragalus. It also seriously damages the potato and is known to injure tomatoes and sweet-potatoes and to eat the leaves of the cherry, anemone, and chrysanthemum. In the latitude of central Illinois the beetles have been found from May ipth to October. They are most abundant about the middle of June, and are actively injurious for a month or more. Specimens collected June i3th soon laid their eggs abundantly, the female burrowing into the earth for this purpose, sometimes as much as two inches, and depositing a batch of sixty to one hun- dred and twenty eggs irregularly stuck together. THE SPOTTED BLISTER-BEETLE. Epicauta maculata Say. This abundant western species, ranging from New Mexico to Dakota and west to California and Oregon, is reported as decidedly injurious to beets in Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota. It is especially fond of lamb's-quarters and other weeds of the Chenopodinm family, and also feeds upon the potato, clover, and greasewood. Fig. 62. The Common Gray Blister-beetle, Macrobasis uni- color, adult. (Bruner.) Fig. 63. The Spotted Blister-beetle, Epicattta iaculata. (Bruner.) 488 BULLETIN NO. 60. {August THE STRIPED BLISTER-BEETLE. Epicanta vittata Fabr., and var. lemniscata Fabr.* This is the common striped blister-beetle of Illinois, the one most generally known as a potato beetle. The variety may be distinguished by the fact that it has six black stripes on the back instead of four. It is distributed throughout the United States from Florida to Canada, and west to the Rocky Mountains. It is a well-known destroyer of the potato and tomato, and feeds frequently with injurious effect on leaves of the sugar beet. It scatters more widely in feeding than the black species does, and is consequently less injurious to individual plants attacked. It devours also buckwheat, carrots, corn, some of the leguminous plants, cabbage, the arrowleaf (Sagittaria), clematis, and the common pigweed {Amarantus}. The adults occur from June ist to the first part of Sep- tember, most abundantly in the latter half of July and in August. Dr. Riley found them at St. Louis in October, and a second brood more or less complete may occur in the South. With us, however, the species is apparently single-brooded, the female laying four or five hundred eggs, about one hundred and thirty at a time. Fig. 64. The Striped Blister beetle, Ep icauta vittata (Bruner. ) THE ASH-COLORED BLISTER-BEETLE. Epicauta cinerea Forst. This species, extremely like the gray blister-beetle, with which it has evidently often been confused, appears to be most abundant west- ward, principally in Nebraska and adjacent states. It occurs, however, in small numbers in Illinois and probably farther east. It is quite destructive to plants of the bean family in Nebraska, and almost de- stroyed a small beet field near Lincoln in that state. It often completely defoliates the hornbeam, honey-locust, and black locust trees. It has been taken sparingly in July and August in both northern and southern Illinois, most commonly on the Virginia creeper. *This form is so generally found pairing with typical vittata, that there can be no doubt of their specific identity. ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 489 THE MARGINED BLISTER-BEETLE. Fig. 65. The Margined Blister-beetle, Epicauta margittata, adult. Epicauta marginata Fabr. (E. cinerea marginata Horn). This blister-beetle, very com- mon in Illinois, is easily distin- guished by its general black color, except that the wing-covers are edged with gray. It is quite in- jurious to beets in Illinois and In- diana, but not especially so in Ne- braska. It has done serious injury to beans, tomatoes, potatoes and other vegetables, and to asters and other flowers. Among wild plants it feeds upon pigweed, ground- cherry (Physalis} and wild sunflower {Helianthus}. We have taken the beetles from the latter part of June till October, most abundantly from about the middle of July until after the middle of August. Two broods of the beetles are said to have been observed in Indiana. THE BLACK BLISTER-BEETLE. Epicauta pennsylvanica DeG. This is probably our most destructive blister-beetle both to beets and to other crops, owing especially to its great numbers and its gre- garious feeding habits. It seems to be very com- mon throughout the country from Massachusetts to Utah. It is found in Texas, and in Kentucky is said to have destroyed an acre of beets in two days. It is one of the most destructive of beet insects in Nebraska, and has been reported to us from Minnesota beet fields, and is known to have destroyed a beet crop in some part of New York. It feeds upon a variety of plants including potatoes, beans, carrots, cabbages, the leaves and silks of corn, honey-locust, passion-flowers, garden pinks, and pigweed, and, especially in fall, upon flowers of the goldenrod, rosin-weed (Silphiuni), mustard, etc. The adults appear from June to October. The period of its greatest abundance is during August and Fig. 66. The Black Blister- beetle, Epicauta pennsyh'an- ica. (Bruner.) 49 BULLETIN NO. 60. {August, September about a month later than that of the other species. The Kentucky outbreak referred to above occurred late in July. NUTTALL'S BLISTER-BEETLE. Cantharis nuttalli Say. This beautiful western species, shining green and red or purple, is distributed from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains, being es- pecially abundant northwestward into British America. The larvae probably feed on the eggs of the Rocky Mountain grasshopper, as the beetles seem to increase in numbers after. "grass- hopper years. " When abundant they ravenously devour the tender parts of garden vegetables, including beets, beans being perhaps injured worst. The adults appear about July ist and in some localities continue in destructive num- bers into the fall. For this species destruction by mechanical means is evidently to be pre- ferred to insecticide measures. Fig. 67. beetle, Ca n (Chittenden, Agriculture.) Nuttall's Blister- tharis nuttalli. U. S. Dept. of SNO UT-BEE TLES. Rhynchophora. The beetles of this family are distinguished by the character of the head, which is drawn out in front into a more or less evident beak or snout, sometimes short and broad, sometimes very long and slender, but always attached to the head without a joint, and bearing the mouth and the jaws at its tip. The larvae of this family are white, thick grubs, without legs and usually with brown heads, which live in the roots, stems, and fruits of plants, within which the eggs are deposited by the female beetle. The adults often injure plants by feeding on the leaves, stems, flowers, and fruit. Those with short snouts simply devour the leaves or stems from without, and those with longer snouts puncture the stem or some other thick and succulent part of the plant and devour the soft sub- stance within. In this manner beets are injured, the leaves being eaten by some species, and the leaf stems punctured and gouged by others. So far as known to us, the larvae of the snout-beetles do not appear in the beet root, although Lintner makes a statement to that effect. *i* In eastern Europe serious injury is often done to beets by beetles of this family, but in America they have rarely been abundant enough in the beet field to do any considerable harm. The beetles are sluggish and most of them feign death when disturbed, falling to the ground and ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 49 I lying motionless there. They are thus easily captured by hand, or they may be reached by the usual arsenical insecticide applications to the beet plant. Seven species of American snout-beetles are known to feed upon the beet leaf, four of them black or gray with broad short snouts, and three minute black or gray beetles with long slender snouts. Tanymecus confertits is about as large as the cucumber beetle and one fourth of an inch long. It is gray, mottled and speckled with brown, and washed with yellowish, especially on the subcylindrical head and thorax. Epiccerus imbricatus (Fig. 68) is also blackish gray with oblique pale- gray bands upon the back. It is three-eighths of an inch long, plump and rounded, and much heaviest behind. Two species of Otiorhynchus common to this country and Europe infest the sugar beet in America, O. sulcatiis and O. singularis. Sulcatus, three eighths of an inch long, with heavy abdomen and small distinct thorax, is black, without trans- verse or oblique bands, dotted sparsely with minute tufts of yellow hairs; singularis is similar but smaller, five sixteenths of an inch long, with rela- tively larger thorax, the color dull dark brown sprinkled with yellowish. Two American species of Centrinus injure the leaf-stem of the beet; C. penicellus, which is about an eighth of an inch long, brownish gray, usually with denuded black spots near the tip of the wing-cover, and C. perscitus about half as long as the foregoing and a much darker grayish- brown. A minute black seed-weevil {Apion~) also occurs on sugar beets. THE IMBRICATED SNOUT-BEETLE. Epicarus imbricatus Say. This beetle feeds upon a very large list of plants, comprising the sugar beet, the leaves and bark of the twigs of the pear, peach, plum, apple, cherry, raspberry, blackberry, and gooseberry, the leaves and fruit of the strawber- ry, and the leaves of the cabbage, bean, watermelon, musk- melon, cucumber, squash, beet, potato, tomato, sweet - pota- to, onion, corn, pig- eon-grass, and locust, besides the blossoms of the red clover. In Fig. 63. The Imbricated Snout-beetle, Epiceerus imbricatus: ^ap the beet field the adult, top view; b, side view; c. larva, top view; d, side view; t, egg; largest of the leaves ' f ' eggs " leaf ' ( chittenden - u - s - ^P'- of Agriculture.) are eaten away until, in some cases, only the stems and a few fragments of veins and leaves are left. 4p2 BULLETIN NO. 60. \AugUSt, This species is widely distributed from the Atlantic to Utah and Arizona, except in the most northern states. It is especially common on sandy soil and east of the Mississippi. Eggs have been found on the pear and strawberry and on the wild sensitive-pea (Cassia marilandica). They are elongate-cylindrical, pale yellowish, smooth, and shining. They are placed side by side in irregular rows within a concealment made by gluing together two adjacent leaves, or by turning over the edge of the leaf and gluing it securely to the surface. A female of this species kept under observation in Washington laid five hundred and forty eggs, which hatched in from ten to fifteen days. The larvae have not as yet been raised to maturity, but they seem to thrive in confine- ment on strawberry leaves. There is apparently but one generation in a year, the species hibernating as an adult. The beetles have been found abundant in early spring along the Potomac, and we have col- lected them throughout the season up to August ist. They are most injurious, however, in May. The eggs have been noticed April 24th to July 6th. The first adults of the season seem to appear about Septem- ber ist, and specimens of this generation have been taken by us in October. When disturbed the beetles drop to the ground, apparently feigning death, and they can consequently easily be destroyed by knocking them off the plants into pans of water covered with kerosene. THE BLACK VINE-WEEVIL. Otiorhynchus sulcatus Fabr. This European species seems not to thrive in the United States. Although it is found from New York northwest into Canada and has long been known on this continent, it is still comparatively rare here, and its injuries have been confined mainly to greenhouse plants, espe- cially the fern and cyclamen. In Europe it is a troublesome pest, eat- ing the leaves and shoots of grape, strawberry, raspberry, mangel-wurzel, primrose, etc. The eggs are laid in the earth at the roots of the plant infested by the adult. There is but one brood a year, and the species passes the winter in the larva stage. The pupa is formed in April, and the beetles appear in April and May. They are nocturnal in their habits, feeding only in the night and hiding usually by day. They are conse- quently readily collected under chips, pieces of board, etc., like the plum-curculio. THE CLAY- COLORED WEEVIL. LVITZl Otiorhynchus singularis Mann. (O. picipes Fabr. ). This European species, but little known in this country, is a nox- ious pest in England, swarming out at night from their day-time retreats, 1900.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR KEET. 493 and devouring the leaves of vines, fruit-trees, raspberries, currants, and a considerable list of garden crops. Not only leaves, but buds, green shoots, and tender bark are eaten. The larvse infest the roots of many of the plants attacked by the adults. The species has been reported from Essex, Massachusetts, by Prof. A. S. Packard. Its life history is substantially the same as that of the preceding species. Tanymecus confer fits Gyll. This species has been but once reported as notably injurious to the sugar beet. In Nebraska it devoured early in the season the cocklebur, lamb's-quarters, and smartweed in a twelve-acre beet-field, and when these were gone completely destroyed the beets. This was a very weedy field which had been allowed to fill up with cockleburs, and the beetles probably bred on the roots of this plant. The species is found throughout the United States as far west as the Rocky Mountains. It is apparently single-brooded and hibernates as an adult. We have collected it in November and December, and at various dates in spring and summer up to the first part of July. A few beetles taken by us in September were probably from the new brood. Apion sp. A single black species of this genus of minute seed-weevils, has been found by Bruner in Nebraska on sugar beets. Centrinus penicellus Hbst. This little beetle, reported by Bruner as attacking beets in the West, is moderately common from the Atlantic States to the Rocky Mountains. It gnaws small holes in the leaf-stems, and when numerous does considerable harm to plants attacked. Its immature stages and life history are unknown. We have taken the beetle in the latter part of July and in August. Centrinus perse if- us Hbst. Bruner reports this species also as injurious to beets, gnawing small holes in the leaf-stems. It is commoner in Nebraska than the preced- ing species, and is reported also from Georgia, Texas, and Iowa. THE EXPOSED LEAF-EATING CATERPILLARS. Besides the web-worms, cutworms, leaf-rollers, etc., already dis- cussed, fifteen species of caterpillars have thus far been seen by us or 494 BULLETIN NO. 60. [August, reported by others feeding upon the beet leaf with a frequency to make them worthy of mention in this article. The cigar-case-bearer is a minute caterpillar, instantly recognized by the whitish cigar-shaped case with which it surrounds its body in summer, only the head and legs pro- jecting as it crawls about. The common army-worm (Fig. 69), the cot- ton cutworm, the grass-worm (Fig. 73), and the beet army-worm are striped with gray, blackish, or brown. The army-worm has three dark stripes on each side; the cotton cutworm maybe recognized by two con- spicuous rows of velvety black oval-triangular spots on the back, and by a black spot on each side of the first segment of the abdomen just be- hind the legs; and the grass-worm and the beet army-worm have on each side a broad blackish stripe. The slight differences between the last two will be given, in describing the beet army-worm. Next follow two green larvae, each with a white or roseate lateral stripe. One of these, Mamestra trifolii (Fig. 75 a, b~], is distinguished by a row of darker streaks down each side of the back which are wanting in the green beet leaf-worm (Peridroma incivis}. The zebra-caterpillar {Mamestra pict.a Fig. 77) may be readily known by its brilliant black and yellow stripes and bands, and the pale green Plusias (Fig. 76) by their resemblance to measuring-worms as they move along. Having but three pairs of legs on the abdomen they loop the body more or less in locomotion. The purslane-caterpillar (Copidryas gloveri Fig. 78) is banded with black on a light background; and the purslane-sphinx {Deilephila*) is either yellow-green, with eye-like spots on each segment, often accom- panied by dark stripes (Fig. 81), or blackish, with series of pale yellow spots (Fig. 82). All the foregoing are smooth or naked caterpillars. Three addi- tional species are densely covered with a fur of long slender hairs, on account of which they have received the general name of the woolly bears. These are the yellow bear {Spilos.oma virgiiiica Fig. 84 d, Fig. 85), the hedge-hog caterpillar {Pyrrharctia Isabella Fig. 84 c, Fig. 86), and the salt-marsh caterpillar {Lettcarctia acrcea Fig. 84 a, b~). x THE CIGAR-CASE BEARER. {Colcophora fletcherella Fernald.) This little caterpillar in its curious cigar-shaped case has been sev- eral times noticed by us on sugar beets, eating small circular holes through the leaves. It ranges from New York and Canada eastward, and sometimes seriously injures the buds of apple, pear, and plum in "Spring, and later bores the fruit. It spends the winter partly grown, forming its characteristic case about the middle of May. It pupates within this case, attached to the leaf, in June and July. Its injury to beets has thus far been altogether insignificant. i goo.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 495 Fig. 69. The Army-worm, Leucania unipitncta larva. THE ARMY-WORM. Leucania unipiincta Haw. The common army-worm is a striped caterpillar with sixteen legs, of similar size and general appearance to ordinary cutworms, to which, indeed, it is closely related in the entomological classification and by all its habits except the occasional one of traveling in hordes or armies, to which its common name is due. When full grown it is greenish black, lighter beneath, with three dark stripes, similar in width, on each side of the body, the middle one nearly black. The adult moth is fawn-colored, with dusky hind wings, and with a small white dot near the middle of each fore wing. Although it is normally a grass insect, breeding ordinarily in meadows, or occa- sionally in fields of young grain, a large variety of garden vegetables, including beets, are accepted by it as food if they happen to be in its line of march. It will notbe seen in the beet field, however, except where its ordinary food supplies of grass and grain have be- gun to fail, compelling it to abandon its usual feed- ing grounds. It is a com- mon insect at all times and in all parts of Illinois, but it is not noticeably de- structive except in occasional years when circumstances favor its mul- tiplication to an extraordinary extent. The eggs are deposited in the rolled-up bases of grain or grass leaves on ground where the rankest growth of plants occurs. From ten to fifty may be laid on a single leaf. The moths are of nocturnal habit, and the eggs are deposited after dark. The caterpillars feed at night, usually remaining hidden by day except during cloudy weather. When full grown they bury themselves in the ground an inch or two, forming there, by turning about, a smooth C3iVll Y withiti which the transformations occur. There are three generations in a year, and the winter is passed mainly in the moth or the pupa stage. The adults, which come abroad in early spring either from hibernat- ing pupae or from the winter quarters of the moths, lay eggs late in Fig 71. The Army-worm, Leucania unipuncta: a, male adult; b, abdomen of female adult; c, eye; d, base of male antenna; e, base of female antenna. pupa. 496 BULLETIN NO. 60. [August, April or early in May for the first brood of the caterpillars. The second brood, appearing in Illinois late in June or early in July, is more likely than either of the others to be injurious, and more than one of the three broods is never destructive in the same locality. This species is especially subject to destruction by parasites, which speedily suppress any destructive outbreak, with the effect that thearmy- w.orm is rarely especially abundant for two successive years in the same locality. Commonly, indeed, an interval of several years occurs be- tween noticeable army-worm outbreaks. Wherever these insects appear in numbers, their movement may be checked and themselves destroyed by the time-honored farmer's resource of ditching across their line of movement, or by plowing a series of furrows, with the smooth vertical edge facing the advancing host. In these barriers, which they will not easily surmount, they can readily be destroyed by methods generally well known. Sometimes a similar purpose may be effected by spraying thoroughly with Paris green and water a strip of vegetation which the army-worms are about to cross. If they are abroad in the vicinity of a beet field their progress must be promptly arrested, as a day's delay will often result in the destruction of several acres of the crop exposed to their invasion. THE COTTON CUTWORM. Prodenia ornithogalli Guen. (/*. lineatella Harv.). This caterpillar, an inch and a third to an inch and two-thirds long, is conspicuously marked with a row of velvety black oval-triangu- lar spots along the back, at some distance on each side of the middle. It is darker than the / average cutworm and is distinguished by a conspicuous black spot on each side just behind the joint- ed legs. It has a varied list of food plants, including beets, corn, wheat, Fig. 72. The Cotton Cutworm, Prodenia ornithogalli, adult. cabbage, potato, as- paragus, salsify, peach, raspberry, and, especially, cotton. Dr. Riley says that he found it on practically all kinds of succulent plants both wild and cultivated. It is one of the common caterpillars in Illinois beet fields. It has attracted principal attention as a cotton insect, destroying sometimes acres of young plants shortly after they appeared above ground, and later boring into cotton bolls much as does the boll- worm {Hcliothis). The species is found from Massachusetts to Minne- 1900.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 497 sota and California, and south to the Gulf of Mexico. It passes the winter, according to Riley, most generally in the larval stage, but some- times also as pupa or imago. The caterpillars are commonest in Illinois in July and August, where there is perhaps but a single brood. In the South, however, there seems to be at least two generations annually, one occurring in April and the other late in June. THE COMMON GRASS -WORM. Laphygma frugiperda S. & A. This insect, called also the fall army-worm, and often confused on that account with the true army-worm, was extraordinarily abundant throughout Illinois and many other states during the summer of 1899. According to Chittenden's article* it was reported from New York and New Jersey southward to Florida, and westward to Texas, Kansas, and Nebraska. It attracted most attention, perhaps, last season in lawns, the turf of which it completely deadened in many towns; but it was also injurious to small grain, corn, broom-corn, etc., giving rise to much apprehension among those not acquainted with its history and habits. In Illinois it was defi- nitely reported to the office from Chicago and its suburbs, from Quincy, Meredosia, Arcola, and Urbana, and from Villa Ridge in extreme southern Illinois, as well as from many inter- Fig. 73. The Common Grass- mediate plaCCS. It is especially fond of grass and other larva; b, head of larva, front view; c, abdominal segment of larva, top graminaceous plants, corn, broom-corn, wheat, view; d, side view. oatS) etc IQ & water melon field it cleared out the grass-like weeds, but did not injure the melon vines. Notwithstanding its abundance about Champaign none were seen by us on beets until October, when young larvae were found gnawing the leaves of that plant. Most of them were freshly hatched, but none of the lot was large enough for unmistakable identification. Its list of food plants is so long and varied as to be almost exhaustive of our ordinary crops and weeds. Indeed, in extreme cases it leaves scarcely any green vegetation uninjured, and has even been known to enter greenhouses, and Fig. 74 . The Common Grass- to eat corn fodder in the stack. w ? rm> L*pkys>"fr*gi*r* a: a ' adult; b, c, two-color varieties. *Bull. No. 23, N. S., U. S. Dept. Agr., Div. Ent., p. 79. 498 BULLETIN NO. 60. [August, It differs from the army-worm in its method of avoiding the con- sequences of a too prolific multiplication, not moving off in definite hordes and in fixed directions, like the latter insect, but spreading indefinitely in all directions from the most densely populated area. It ranges over the whole United States east of the Rocky Mountains, and it is also found in Jamaica and Brazil. There are at least two, and probably three, generations of the species in each year in the latitude of central Illinois, one becoming destructive in the larval state late in July and continuing abundant in August, and another appearing in Octo- ber. The fall brood is usually the destructive one, any other rarely being numerous enough to attract attention. This species is believed to hibernate mainly in the pupa stage, but partly also, in all probability, as an adult. Thus, larvae collected by us October u, 1884, were mostly alive in the earth as pupae in December, a few only having emerged in the preceding month. It is held in check mainly, if not wholly, by its parasites, of which a tachinid fly is one of the most important. THE BEET ARMY-WORM. Laphygma flavimacnlata Harv. This caterpillar, which replaces the foregoing in the Western States, differs from it by its more decidedly mottled ground-color, by a row of white dots at the lower margin of the lateral dark band, and by the yel- lower color of the light stripes. It is an interesting fact that while the preceding species was doing serious, unusual, and very wide-extended injuries in the Eastern and Southern States, the present one was simi- larly abundant in Colorado, where besides destroying many kinds of weeds and grasses it completely defoliated thousands of acres of sugar beets. In some cases where the foliage of the beet did not furnish it sufficient food, the root was attacked and the upper surface often com- pletely gnawed away. Late plantings of course suffered most severely, especially when surrounded by newly broken ground. The weeds most generally eaten were pigweed, saltweed, wild sunflower, and Cleome, Potato, pea, and apple leaves were also devoured. These injuries occurred about the middle of August, at which time larvae and pupae were abundant, and a few moths laden with eggs were also noticed. These facts are derived from the statements of Prof. C. P. Gillette, of the Colorado Experiment Station, who furnished the material for this account together with specimens of the insect. This species evidently hibernates as a moth, and at least two broods of larvae may be looked for each year, the first about June and the sec- ond in August. The species has been reported thus far from Colorado and California, but it doubtless has a more extended range in the moun- ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 499 tain region of the far West. Prof. Gillette's field experiments showed that it could be destroyed by dusting or spraying arsenical poisons on the beet leaf. THE GARDEN MAMESTRA. Mamestra trifolii Rott. (J/. chenopodii Albin. ) This green larva, striped with rose or pinkish white, with a row of darker lines on each side of the back, is found all over Europe and North America. It infests a variety of garden plants and weeds, and sometimes does considerable in- jury to beets by eating the leaves or even the entire tops of small plants, as reported by Bruner in Nebraska. We have found it also on beets in late September and early October on the Experiment Station farm in Illinois. In Amer- ica it has been noted feeding on cabbage, turnips, and numerous other garden vegetables, and upon lamb's-quarters and purslane among the common weeds. It is evidently two-brooded, hibernat- ing as a pupa, and the moths ap- pearing in the early spring. We have found them abundant at electric lights in May. Larvse of the first brood have been taken in June and early July, and of the second brood in September and early October. Larvae taken from the sugar beet September 26th and October pth entered the ground for pupation between October 8th and i3th. Mamestra sp. Bruner mentions a larva found abundant in beets at Norfolk, Neb., which was about the size and general appearance of the darker form of M. trifolii but differed in habits and markings. It was not bred to the imago, and its species is consequently unknown. THE GREEN BEET LEAF-WORM. Peridroma incivis Guen. During 1899 and 1900 this green larva, with a white or roseate stripe on each side, was the commonest caterpillar on beet leaves in Illinois. Fig. 75. The Garden Mamestra, Mamestra tri- folii: a, b, larva; c, pupa; d, adult; e, wing of adult enlarged; f, last segment of pupa, ventral view. (Riley, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture.) 5 BULLETIN NO. 60. [August, It fed freely exposed on either the under or upper side of the leaf, eat- ing irregular holes, but not becoming seriously injurious. Garman reports it as a common Kentucky insect. It ranges from Florida and Texas to Massachusetts and Illinois, and occurs also in California. French and Garman speak of it as feeding in gardens, and we have found it eating purslane as well as sugar beets. The larva enters the ground and pupates there. In southern Illinois and Kentucky the species is apparently two-brooded. Larvae are common in spring, yielding the imago in June and July; and another brood of larvae oc- curring in August and September gives the imago in October. In central Illinois we have found larvae of all sizes common in July and again in September, the last of them disappearing about October i5th. Examples taken July i4th and 26th and September ad all went into the winter in the pupa stage. Further study of the life history is evidently necessary to determine the usual facts for this species. THE CABBAGE PLUSIA. Plusia brassica Riley. This pale green looping caterpillar is striped with longitudinal whitish lines of varying distinctness, which narrow noticeably towards the head. It is by preference a cabbage insect, but occasionally eats the leaves of beets. When young it eats small holes in leaves, but as it grows larger it devours the leaf completely, and even gnaws away the stalk. It is seriously injurious to the cabbage in the South, and in Minnesota was reported in 1884 to be almost as injuri- ous to cabbage as the com- mon cabbage worm {Pieris rapce). It feeds also on celery, kale, turnip, tomato, lettuce, mignonette, dande- lion, dock, clover, lamb's- quarters, and some less common cultivated plants. It ranges throughout the United States, and occurs also in Canada. The eggs are laid upon the food plant singly or in small clusters, loosely attached to the leaf. The full grown larva spins a gauzy cocoon wrapped in the leaf or attached to the stem, and within this the green or light yellowish pupa is presently found. The blackish or dark gray moths are distinguished Fig. 76. The Cabbage Plusia, Plusia brassica : a, larva; b, pupa in its thin cocoon; c, adult. 1900.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGV OF THE SUGAR BEET. 501 by a silvery U-shaped spot on the middle of the fore wing and an oval silvery dot adjoining it on the outside. The number of generations annually has not been satisfactorily de- termined. Riley believed that there were probably four in the latitude of Washington, D. C. This caterpillar has an enormously destructive parasitic enemy, a minute hymenopterous insect, which pupates within the skin of its dead host and emerges in almost incredible numbers, over twenty-five hundred having been counted which must have come from a single infested larva. In a large lot of larvae collected by us at Urbana, only one example escaped parasitism, and Dr. Riley reports a similar observation upon fifty larvae collected by him. THE CELERY PLUSIA. Plusia simplex Guen. This is our commonest Illinois Plusia. It occurs generally in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains, as well as in New Mexico and the Hudson Bay Territory. It is a very destructive celery insect, and we have bred it from a larva found feeding on the sugar beet. It differs from the cabbage species in the fact that its spiracles are distinctly ringed with black, according to Coquillett, while in the cabbage Plusia these rings are indistinct, partial, or wanting. There are believed to be three broods of this species in a year. The caterpillars of the first generation of the year hatch late in May and get their growth late in June or early in July. The life of the second generation extends from the first part of July to the middle of September, and the third begins to issue from the egg early in October. This brood hibernates about half- grown, attaining full size during the latter half of .April. This account, compiled from Coquillett's statement in the Eleventh Illinois Report, is confirmed by our collections, in which the moths of this species occur twice in April, ten times early in May, ten times between July i5th and August i5th, and six times in the latter half of September. THE ZEBRA-CATERPILLAR. Mamestra picta Harr. Although evidently preferring cabbage and other cruciferous plants, this abundant and conspicuous caterpillar occasionally attacks beets. It seems to be somewhat whimsical in its food habits. It has been re- ported by Felt, of New York, as excessively abundant in timothy and as the probable agent in the destruction of twenty acres of oats. Other food plants recorded are cauliflower, turnip, rutabaga, bean, pea, carrot, celery, potato, spinach, asparagus, buckwheat, corn, clover, currant, cranberry, apple, orange, willow, spruce, mignonette, aster, sweet pea, snowberry, honeysuckle, smartweed, burdock, and lamb's-quarters. It 5 2 BULLETIN NO. 60. [August r is distributed from Canada to Florida, and west to Nebraska. The eggs are deposited in large clusters of as many as a hundred and fifty each, usually on the under surfaces of the leaves. The young caterpillars are at first white, hairy, and speckled, each with a black head and a black crescent upon the thorax. They feed for a time in a dense group, but after a few days they molt and assume the zebra-mark- ings of the full grown larva. This is black with two yellow stripes on each side, the broad interval between which is crossed by numer- ous fine white lines. The under surface is tawny. When disturbed the caterpillar coils up and falls to the ground. It pupates under ground within a rude cocoon. There are two genera- tions a year, hibernation being either in the pupal or larval stage. The first and most destructive brood of larvae occurs in June and July, and the second in September and October. THE PURSLANE-CATERPILLAR. Copidryas gloveri G. & R. Fig. 77. The Zebra-caterpillar, Mainestra picta: a, larva b, adult. (Riley, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture.) Fig. 78. The Purslane-caterpillar, Copi- dryas gloveri : a. adult; b, larva. (Rfley & Howard, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture.) Fig. 79. The Purslane- caterpillar, Copidryas gloveri, egg, greatly en- larged. (Riley & How- ard, U. S. Dept. of Agri- culture ) Fig. 80. The Purs- lane-caterpillar, Copi- dryas gloveri, with head and last seg- ments enlarged. (Riley and Howard, U. S. Dept. of Agri- culture.) This insect, the usual food of which is purslane, is not an Illinois species, but as it seems to have spread from its original home in Texas 1900.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. and New Mexico into Kansas and Nebraska it may yet reach Illinois, where there is certainly no lack of its favorite food. In Nebraska it has been seen to feed on the leaves of the sugar beet. Its size is about that of a common cutworm. It is whitish or light gray, conspicuously banded with black on each segment, and shaded with salmon-pink. The eggs are laid in clusters of two to five on the under side of the leaf of the infested plant. The young larvae, which hatch in two or three days, are light or yellowish green at first, with darker shadings. They become full grown in eight or nine days, and make then a tubular burrow in the earth for pupation, closing the opening with a thin layer of dirt. After about twelve days as a pupa, the moth appears. This is brownish gray, with a creamy curved streak along the fore wings, the hind wings buff with a blackish border. Four broods of this caterpillar have been recorded. THE PURSLANE-SPHINX. Deilephila lineata Fabr. This fairly well-known caterpillar varies in markings to an unusual degree. Two distinct forms may be separated, one yellow-green, with eye-like spots on each segment, often accompanied by dark stripes, the Fig. 81. The Purslane-sphinx, Deilephila lineata, larva. other blackish with series of pale yellow spots. Its favorite food-plants are purslane and chickweed, and on these it may often be found in con- siderable numbers. Its preferences are not very strict, however, and it may devour almost any low plant. It is reported by Bruner to injure Fig. 82. The Purslane-sphinx, Deilephila lineata, larva, dark variety. (Lippincott Co.) the sugar beet in Nebraska, and has been seen eating beet leaves at Pekin, 111. Thus far it has caused no serious injury to vegetables in cul- tivation, and if it should become locally abundant it could easily be destroyed by hand. When full grown it forms a smooth cavity in the 504 BULLETIN NO. 60. [August, earth within which it changes to a light-brown pupa with a tongue-sheath like the handle of a pitcher. The handsome well-known moth from this pupa is commonly called the white-lined morning-sphinx. It is one of the twilight species which when flitting about flowers in the dusk is most likely to be mistaken for a hummingbird by those ignorant of the Fig. 83. The Purslane-sphinx, Deilephila lineata, adult. (Lippincott Co.) habits of that species. It is also not uncommon at the electric light. This sphinx-moth is two-brooded, the larvae of the first brood being most abundant in July and August, and those of the second from the middle of September through October. It hibernates in the pupa stage. THE WOOLLY BEARS {Arctiidce). THE YELLOW BEAR (Spilosoma virginica Fabr.). THE HEDGE- HOG CATERPILLAR (Pyrrharctia Isabella Abb.). THE SALT-MARSH CATERPILLAR {Leucarctia acrcea Dru.). The larvae of these three related species are one and a half to one and three fourths inches long, and thickly coated with erect hairs from which fact their general name is derived. They are common and widely distributed, and very general feeders, devouring leaves of garden vege- tables (including beets), small fruits, vines, and young trees. The yel- low bear is probably the commonest and the salt-marsh caterpillar the least common of the three in Illinois. The hedge-hog caterpillar, tawny red on the middle half or two-thirds of the body and black at each end, is a familiar object in late fall and early spring, often noticed as it hur- ries over the ground in search of hibernating quarters, for it passes the winter in the larval stage. It derives its popular name from the fact that it rolls itself up into a bristly ball when frightened or disturbed. In the other two species the coat is nearly uniform in color throughout, but differs in shade from very light to very dark. The head of the yellow 1900.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. bear is pale and unmarked, the hair is commonly dark brown, the body beneath it often with dusky stripes. In the salt-marsh caterpillar the Fig. 84. Faces of woolly bear larvae: a, b, The Salt-Marsh Caterpillar, Leucarctia acrtza, showing" variation in extent of black coloring; c. The Hedge-hog Caterpillar, Pyrrharctia Isabella; d, The- Yellow Bear, Spilosoma. virginica.. head is more or less black, the hair is commonly dark brown, and the body is blackish, with pale lateral and medio- dorsal stripes. Both these species hibernate in the pupa stage. When quite young the larvaer merely eat the surface of the leaves, but when older they make large holes. When one of the woolly bears is full grown it seeks a conven- ient shelter, makes rath- a, larva; er a thick cocoon of the hairs of its coat inter- woven with coarse silk, and transforms within this to a dark brown chrysalis. The pupa of the hedge-hog caterpillar bears some tufts of- golden bristles, and its tawny cocoon is often found on old boards. Fig, 85. The Yellow Bear, b, pupa; c, adult. 506 BULLETIN NO. 60. The perfect insects of these species are very well-known thick-bod- ied moths, that of the yellow bear being the one to which the common name of "miller" is most likely to be attached. Its heavily-coated wings are snowy white with a few black dots, and the abdomen orange, with three rows of black spots above. The adult of the hedge-hog cat- erpillar is the Isabella moth, orange-buff on wings and body, with the hind wings tinted more or less with rose. The wings are also speckled with black, and black dots are arranged on the upper surface of the abdomen in three longi- tudinal rows. The moth of the salt-marsh caterpillar has the abdomen orange, and all the wings white in the female, the male differing by the orange hinder wings. In both sexes the wings are thickly speckled with black, and the abdomen with black in three longitudinal rows. All three of the species seem to be normally two- brooded. The larvae of the first brood are commonest in June and July, and those of the sec- ond brood in September. The woolly bears are frequently beset by hymenopterous parasites, and the hedge-hog caterpillar seems especially subject to death by muscardine due to the attacks of a parasitic fungus which converts the body soon after death into a rigid mummy, scarcely shrunken from the proportions of the living insect. Fig. 86. The Hedge-hog Caterpillar, Pyrrharctia. Isabella: a, larva; b, pupa in cocoon; c, adult. Injuries to the roots. In case an unthrifty condition of the beet plant is not fully ex- plained by injuries to the foliage, an examination of the roots will often betray the presence there of insects doing an injury sufficient to diminish the general vigor of the plant, or which may result in its destruction. There are two classes of injury to the roots of beets by insects; those resulting from a sucking of the sap from the tissue of the root by true bugs (ffemiptera); and those due to beetles and their larvae, which gnaw the surface of the root or eat into its substance. Injuries by the sucto- rial Hemiptera are distinctly recognizable only when the insects them- selves are found on the root, since the local effect of the abstraction of the sap is not usually very marked. The insects of this description thus 19-] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. S7 far noticed on the beet root are few in number, and have rarely been of great importance. Our present list of those infesting the root of the beet is limited to two species of plant-lice {Pemphigus beta, and Aphis middletonii) and a single mealy bug (Dactylopius^, the species of which is uncertain. ROOT-LICE (Aphididcz and Cocfidat). THE BEET APHIS. Pemphigus beta Doane. This insect, but very lately brought to the attention of beet-growers, offers an extraordinary example of the injury to vegetation which may be done by root-lice. Our information concerning it is due to Mr. R. W. Doane. Assistant Zoologist of the Washington State Agricultural Experiment Station, at Pullman, Wash., whose latest publication on this species is contained in Bulletin 42 of that Station. Attention was first called to this pest, he says, in 1896, when it was found that a field of two or three acres of beets was generally infested, a strip of twenty-five to a hun- dred yards being so badly in- jured that the beets were nearly all soft and spongy, and the plants much smaller than the average. Other beet fields in the vicinity of this were also generally infested. During sub- sequent years this aphis has been found in considerable numbers in almost every beet field in that locality, and in 1899 it was unusually destruc- tive. It was first described as a new species by Mr. Doane in 1900, and seems thus far to have been found only in Washington and Oregon. In the latter state it has been even more destructive than in Washington, at least a thousand tons of beets having been destroyed by it in one year in a single valley devoted largely to beet culture. Like very many other beet insects, this species infests also several wild or useless plants; a wild yarrow (Achillcea lanulosa Nutt.) and a knot-weed {Polygomtm arii 11 tare}, together with various other weeds and grasses, both native and introduced. It has also been reported as occurring on potatoes, cultivated roses, and the wild service-berry, but its identity in these cases is as yet in doubt. This root aphis occurs in two forms, wingless and winged, the Fig. 87. The Beet Aphis, Pemphigus betie : a, winged female; b. wingless female; c, antenna of winged female. (Doane. ) 508 BULLETIN NO. 60. wingless form being much the more abundant. These are small, pale yellow or whitish, with a mass of flocculent matter covering the posterior part of the body, evidently much as in the case of the woolly aphis of the apple. Indeed, the first thing to attract attention when an infested beet is examined is .this white fungus-like substance covering the in- fested surface. The insects are mostly pear-shaped, an eighth of an inch in length when full grown. "Upon examination with the lens the whole body, including the legs and antennae, is seen to be dusted over with a white powder, and the floc- culent mass is seen to be made up of thousands of very fine white threads arising from the last three or four segments of the body and often half as long as the body itself. The legs and antennae and a rather large spot on the dorsal side of the head are brown. The eyes appear as small black dots on the sides of the head. The antennas are six jointed, the third joint being the longest; the sixth joint, which is the next in length, has the distal portion contracted so it is only about half as large as the basal portion. "Winged forms are also often found late in the season. These are somewhat larger, more elongated, and very much darker in color. The whole head and thorax, together with the legs and antennae, are bluish black, lightly dusted with the white powder. The abdomen is dark green with only a little of the flocculent matter on the posterior segments. The thin membranous wings are usually held folded roof-like over the body, beyoud the tip of which they extend for some distance. The eyes are much larger than in the wingless forms and are brown. With the winged forms a number of pupae usually also occur. These look just like th2 winged forms, but instead of the wings they have little blunt pad-like organs, the undeveloped wings, on either side of the thorax." The smaller rootlets of the beet are first attacked by this aphis, and if it occurs in considerable numbers these are soon all destroyed, and the leaves thereupon soon wither, and the whole beet shrivels and becomes spongy. This wilting of the leaves will frequently, in fact, be the first thing to attract the attention of the beet grower. The actual injury to the crop will, of course, depend largely upon the time when the attack of the aphis is made. If the plants are small they may readily be destroyed, while if they are practically full grown the loss of the small rootlets will not materially affect them. No sexual generation of this aphis has as yet been discovered and no eggs have been seen, viviparous reproduction continuing throughout the year except when the cold of the winter temporarily suspends the physiological activities of the species. The winged females, appearing from time to time during the summer and fall, serve to distribute the species generally, new colonies being started wherever these females find lodgment and food. In districts liable to injury by this insect it 1900.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 509 seems inadvisable that beets should ba the first crop on new land, or that ground should be continued in beets or in any other root crop after the pest has made its appearance in the field. Aphis iniddletonii Thos. Occasionally colonies of this root aphis, which had previously been found only on roots of certain weeds, were detected by us in 1899 and 1900 in Illinois on the sugar beet, established among the smaller roots on each side of the main mass of the beet. Only a small percentage of the beets examined were infested. Two species of ants, Lasius niger alienus and Formica schaufussi, were running about among them in a way to indicate an association of the usual form. The wingless insects of this species are greenish gray, with dark spots above, near the sides, and some dark cross-bars in front of the middle. The winged individuals have the head and thorax black. Thomas found the winged form among the wingless ones during the latter part of September, and the eggs occurred at the same time among the roots. The species is recorded as abundant on the roots of various weeds of the order Compositce the fleabanes {Erigeron)\ horse- weed {Ambrosia trifida~], goldenrod (Solidago serotincf), iron-weed {Vernonia), and aster. It has been recorded from Illinois, Minnesota, and Nebraska. THE ROOT MEALY BUG. Dactylopius sp. A minute whitish insect, resembling a wingless plant-louse, but with an oblong or oval body and very short legs and antennae, may some- times be found on sugar beets. Like the beet root-aphis, described above, it is usually well covered with a white waxy excretion. Such insects infest the roots of a considerable variety of plants. Little is known of their life history, and very few have been taken on beets. A single immature specimen was seen on a sugar-beet root in July in Illi- nois along with examples of Aphis middletonii, and specimens doubtfully referred by Cockerell to Dactylopius solani Q,\A\. were found in Colorado on the crown of the sugar beet. This species occurs on the roots of a common western weed, Solatium rostratnm, and a variety of it infests the roots of a plant of the beet family, Atriplex canescens. WIRE WORMS. E later idee. Among the subterranean insect enemies of the beet one may occa- sionally find, buried in its substance or eating into it from without, long, cylindrical, hard, smooth, reddish brown, worm-like larvae, about an BULLETIN NO. 60. [August, inch long when full grown, and with three pairs of short legs immedi- ately back of the head. This last is flattened, wedge-shaped, with the mouth in front and the jaws extending forward. These wireworms are ordinarily most abundant in grass-lands, which are their normal breed- Fig. 88. The Corn Wireworm, Melano- ius cribulosus, larva. Fig. 90. The Corn Wire- worm, Mclanotiis cribulosus, last segment of larva, top view. Fig. 92. The Corn \Vireworm, Melanotus cribulosus, right-side view of one of the middle segments. Fig. 8y. Drasterius ele. gans, larva. Fig. 91. Drasterius elegans, last segment of latva, top view. ing grounds, but as they live in the earth about two years before trans- forming to the adult beetle stage, they continue their injuries to suc- ceeding crops when the infested pastures or meadows are broken up, often doing much greater injury to this cultivated vegetation than to the grass the roots of which furnish their usual food. These wireworms have been found to eat the smaller roots of beets, and, burrowing into the tap-roots and crowns, often cause the plants to shrivel and die. The species have not ordinarily been discriminated by observers, but we have seen larvae of Melanotus cribulosus and of Dras- terius elegans about beet roots which had been more or less injured and eaten away. An elaborate account of them and of their injuries to corn will be found in the Eighteenth Report of the State Entomologist of Illinois, with keys and figures for the discrimination of the various spe- cies thus far separated. The injurious species agree fairly well in the main features of their life history. They change, when full grown, to dormant pupae in the earth in July, or sometimes in August, and again some three or four 1900.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 51* weeks later to the brown or reddish beetles commonly known as click- beetles or " jumping-jacks " hard, somewhat hairy insects, of slender oval form, distinguished at once by their peculiar habit of springing into the air with a sudden click when placed upon their backs. A large part of these fully developed beetles remain under ground until spring, enjoy- ing there the protection of the oval earthen cavity or cell formed by the Fig. 93. The Corn Wireworm, Melanotus cribulosus, adult. Fig. 94. Drasterius elegans, adult. larva as a preparation for pupation. A part, however, come forth from the ground in fall, passing the winter in sheltered places, and the remain- der emerge in spring, laying their eggs most commonly in grass-lands in the earth. Of their subsequent life history little is yet definitely known. It seems certain that all live more than one year as wireworms in the earth, and observation of the various sizes of larvae of the same species to be found in the field at once, usually supports the common impression that the period of life in the larval stage does not extend much beyond two years. Obviously, infested ground, and especially infested grass-land, should not be put into sugar beets for a year or two after it is broken up from sod. WHITE GRUBS. Lachnosterna and Ligynis. The white grubs or grub-worms are the larvae or young of the very common insects usually known as May-beetles or June-bugs, and of another group, known as manure beetles. These grubs are so common and generally recognized that the accompanying figures will serve to identify them without further description. They are most abundant in grass-lands or in lands recently in grass, although they are occasionally bred in large numbers in fields of corn. They do serious injury to the BULLETIN NO. 60. [August, underground parts of a great variety of crops, including sugar beets, being, like the wireworms, most destructive the second year after grass. They eat the smaller roots, destroy the tap-root of the plant, or gnaw Fig. 95. A June-bug larva or White Grub, Lachnosterna rugosa. Fig. 97. A June-bug, Lachnosterna rugosa, adult; a, last segments of male, from beneath. large cavities in the substance of the beet injuries frequently indicated by the sudden wilting of the leaves. In a Nebraska field of beets, planted on ground which had lain idle for a few years, about fifteen per cent, of the plants were thus destroyed. Grubs of Lachnosterna rugosa have been found by us this year injuring the roots of beets in central Illinois, and causing the plants to wilt. The white grubs common in this state are elaborately treated in the Eighteenth Report of the State Entomologist of Illinois, to which reference may be made for a more de- tailed account. The following summary of the life history will, however, be useful in this place. The eggs are transparent white, at first oblong-oval, soon becoming nearly spher- ical. They are deposited in the earth, one to three inches below the surface, usually some time in June, and they hatch in about ten to eighteen days. The young larvae feed on roots during the remainder of the season, winter over deeper in the ground, and come up and resume feeding when the next season opens. A second winter is passed in the same way, and in June and July of the third season they form oval cells in the earth, and in late summer change to the June beetles. These^beetles do not usually leave their cells until the following spring, when they emerge, pair and lay their eggs, and soon die. They feed during their short life on the Fig. 96. A June-bug larva or White Grub, Lachnosterna rugosa, last seg- ment, from beneath. I pOO.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 513 leaves of trees, especially oak, hickory, and ash, as well as on a few other plants. The damage to foliage is sometimes considerable. There are no measures which can be depended upon for the destruc- tion of white grubs in the beet field, and the beet grower must conse- quently rely upon preventive measures. The most obvious of these is suggested by the fact that the white grub is bred mainly in grass-lands, and that there are few pastures or meadows of long standing which are not more or less infested by them. Consequently, whenever an old sod is broken up it should be planted to some other crop for at least two years before it is set in beets; or, if necessity requiresUhat beets should be raised on such ground at once, this should not be done until it has been cleared of the grubs by thorough pasturing of the sod with pigs. These search out and root out the grubs in the ground, greedily devouring them, and may in the course of a few weeks completely clear a badly infested turf. The fact of the winter retreat of the grubs to a considerable depth below the surface must, however, be borne in mind in this connection. From November to March inclusive they will commonly be beyond the reach of pigs. THE MUCK BEETLE. Ligyrus gibbosus DeG. (PI. IX., Fig. 2.) The larva of this muck beetle need not ordinarily be distinguished from the white grubs above discussed, its size, habits, and appearance being substantially similar; but its life history is less definitely known, and the period of its continuance in the earth is in doubt. The prin- cipal economic difference is due to the different habit of the adult beetle, which does not feed, so far as known, upon the leaves of plants like Lachnosterna and Cyclocephala, but burrows in the earth, eating the roots or the lower part of the stalk of the infested plant much as does the larva itself. In early spring, says Mr. H. E. Weed, the beetles are often dug up by persons working in grass-land. They are said by Bruner to have been quite destructive to sugar beets over limited areas in western Nebraska, gnawing great holes into the roots and sometimes thus entirely imbedding themselves. They work at different depths from the surface, sometimes as much as six or seven inches, but mostly about three or four inches under ground. They were most abundant on old ground and on ground that had been irrigated. They are reported as feeding also on carrots, roots of sunflowers, and tubers of the dahlia. In Mississippi, according to Mr. Weed, a serious injury to corn follow- ing upon grass was done by these beetles, which gnawed the base of the stalk, causing the plant to wilt or killing it outright. The species is widely distributed in the United States, and is abundant in Illinois. 514 BULLETIN NO. 60. \_AugUSt, TECHNICAL LIST OF SPECIES OF BEET INSECTS. ORDER ACARINA. RED SPIDERS. PAGB Tetranychus bimaculatus Harv 406 ORDER ORTHOPTERA. GRASSHOPPERS (Acrididcz, Locustidce). Stenobothrus curtipennis Harr 479 Melanoplus femur-rubrum De G 481 Dissosteira Carolina Linn 479 M. atlanis Riley 482 Trimerotropis latifasciata Scudd. . . . 480 M. spretus Thos 482 Spharagemon aequale Scudd 480 Campylacantha olivacea Scudd 483 Schistocerca alutacea Harr 480 Orchelimum vulgare Harr 483 Melanoplus differentialis Thos 480 Xipbidium nemorale Scudd 484 M. bivittatus Say 481 X. strictum Scudd 484 ORDER HEMIPTERA. SUBORDER HETEROPTERA. THE PIGWEED BUG. Piesma cinerea Say 433 THE COMMON FLOWER-BUG. Triphleps insidiosus Say 434 LEAF-BUGS (Capsidce). Agalliastes associatus Uhl 436 Eccritotarsus elegans Uhl 438 Plagiognathus obscurus Uhl 437 Lygus pratensis Linn. 438 Macrocoleus chlorionis Say 438 Calocoris rapidus Say 440 Halticus uhleri Giard 436 Hadronema militaris Uhl 440 Garganus fusiformis Say 438 SMALLER PLANT-BUGS (LygcEid(c). Emblethis griseus Wolff 442 Geocoris pallens Stal 443 Sphragisticus nebulosus Fall 442 Nysius minutus Uhl 443 Geocoris bullatus Say 443 N. angustatus Uhl 443 LARGER PLANT-BUGS (Corcidte, Pentatomidce, Corimelccnidtc). Corizus lateralis Say 444 Pentatoma uhleri Stal 445 Acanthocerus galeator Fabr 445 Corimelaena pulicaria Germ 447 ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. SUBORDER HOMOPTERA. THE FLATAS (Ormenis, Chlorochroa). Ormenis pruinosa Say .............. 431 Chlorocbroa conica Say ........... 431 LEAF-HOPPERS (Jassoidea, DelphacincE}. Stobera tricarinata Say ............ 415 Athysanus sp ..................... 423 Liburnia ornata Stal ............... 415 Eutettix seminuda Say ............. 423 L. puella Van D ................... 416 E. tenella Uhl ..................... 423 Agallia 4-punctata Prov ............ 416 Phlepsius irroratus Say ............ 424 A. novella Say ................. ... 417 Thamnotettix belli Uhl ............ 424 A. uhleri Van D .................. 418 Gnathodus abdominalis Van D ...... 424 A. sanguinolenta Prov .............. 417 G. impictus Van D ............... 424 Oncoraetopia undata Fabr .......... 418 Cicadula 6-notata Fall ............. 425 Diedrocephala versuta Say ......... 419 Dicraneura fieberi Loew ........... 425 D. mollipes Say ................... 419 Empoasca mali Le B .............. 425. Gypona 8-lineata Say .............. 420 E. flavescens Fabr ................. 427" Platymetopius acutus Say .......... 420 Typhlocyba vulnerata Fitch ........ 427 Deltocephalus melsheimeri Fitch. . . . 421 T. comes Say ................ .... 427 D. inimicus Say ................... 422 T. comes vitis Harr ................ 427 D. nigrifrons Forbes .............. 423 . TREE-HOPPERS (Membracidce). Acutalis calva Say ....................... i .............................. 428 PLANT-LICE (Aphidida:). Pemphigus betae Doane ............ 507 Aphis sp ......................... 430 Aphis middletonii Thos ............. 509 Myzus achyrantes Monell .......... 430 A. gossypii Glover ................. 429 Nectarophora erigeronensis Thos. ? . . 431 A. atriplicis Linn .................. 430 N. pisi Kalt ....................... 431 ROOT COCCID. Dactylopius solani Ckll. ? ................................................... 509 ORDER COLEOPTERA. GROUND-BEETLES (Carabtdce). Clivina impressif rons Lee 484 CARRION-BEETLES. Silpha opaca Linn 484 Silpha bituberosa Lee 485 WIREWORMS (Elateridtc}. Drasterius elegans Fabr 510 Melanotus sp 510 Melanotus cribulosus Lee 510 WHITE GRUBS. Lachnosterna rugosa Melsh 512 Ligyrus gibbosus DeG 513 Lacbnosterna sp 512 BULLETIN NO. 60. [August, LEAF-BEETLES (Chrysomclidcv), NON-JUMPING LEAF-BEETLES. Breeding on Leaves of Plants. Cassida nebulosa Linn 472 Monoxia consputa Lee 475 Monoxia puncticollis Say 475 Breeding on A'oots of Plants. Colaspis brunnea Fabr 473 Diabrotica vittata Fabr 474 Diabrotica i2-punctata Oliv 473 D. longicornis Say 475 FLEA-BEETLES. Breeding on Leaves of Plants. Disonycha crenicollis Say 463 Disonycha xanthomelaena Dalm 464 D. triangularis Say 463 D. cervicalis Lee 465 Breeding on Roots of Plants. Crepidodera atriventris Melsh 465 Systena frontalis Fabr 468 Epitrix cucumeris Harr 465 S. taeniata Melsh 468 E. brevis Schwarz 466 Longitarsus melanurus Melsh 470 Chaetocnema den ticulata 111 466 Glyptina brunnea Horn 470 C. pulicaria Melsh 466 Phyllotreta vittata Fabr 471 C. confinis Cr 467 P. decipiens Horn 471 Systena hudsonias Forst 467 P. albionica Lee 471 Leaf-mining Flea-beetles. Psylliodes punctulata Melsh 472 Psylliodes convexior Lee 472 BLISTER-BEETLES (Meloidce). Megetra vittata Lee 487 Epicauta cinerea Forst 488 Macrobasis unicolor Kirby 487 E. marginata Fabr 489 Epicauta maculata Say 487 E. pennsylvanica DeG 489 E. vittata Fabr 488 Cantharis nuttalli Say 490 E. vittata lemniscata Fabr 488 SNOUT-BEETLES (Khynchophora). Leaf-eating Snout-beetles. Epicaerus imbricatus Say . . 491 Tanymecus confertus Gyll 493 Otiorhynchus sulcatus Fabr 492 Apion sp 493 O. singularis Mann 492 Stem-eating Snout-beetles. Centrinus penicellus Hbst 493 Centrinus perscitus Hbst 493 ORDER LEPIDOPTERA. THE CIGAR-CASE BEARER. Coleophora fletcherella Fern 494 LEAF ROLLERS (Tortricidu-, Pyraustidtr). Tortricidae, spp 454 Phlyctaenia ferrugalis Walk 453 ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 517 GARDEN WEB-WORMS (Loxostege, Hellula). Loxostege sirailalis Guen 456 Hellula undalis Fabr 459 L. sticticalis Linn 457 CUTWORMS. Carneades messoria Harr 450 Noctua c-nigrum Linn 451 Chorizagrotis agrestis Grote 450 Agrotis ypsilon Rott 452 Noctua plecta Linn 452 EXPOSED SMOOTH CATERPILLARS (A r octuidfc), Leucania unipuncta Haw 495 Mamestra sp 499 Prodenia ornithogalli Guen 496 Peridroma incivis Guen 499 Laphygma frugiperda S. & A 497 Plusia brassicae Riley 500 L. flavimaculata Harv 498 P. simplex Guen 501 Mamestra trifolii Rott 499 Copidryas gloveri G.&R 502 Mamestra picta Harr 501 Deilephila lineata Fabr. ...*...... 503 WOOLLY BEARS (Arctiid(c). Spilosoma virginica Fabr 504 Leucarctia acraea Dru 504 Pyrrharctia Isabella Abb 504 ORDER DIPTERA. THE BEET LEAF-MINERS. Chortophila floccosa Macq 407 Pegotnyia vicina Lintn 407 C. betarum Lintn 407 STEPHEN A. FORBES, PH.D., State Entomologist. CHARLES A. HART, Assistant. 518 BULLETIN NO. 60. [August, ECONOMIC BIBLIOGRAPHY. 1882. LINTNER, J. A. Notice of some Anthomyians mining Beet Leaves. (Ninth Ann. Rep. on the Injurious and other Insects of the State of New York, pp. 203-211.) Account of injury in vegetable garden at Middleburg, N.'Y., in summer of 1881. Method of feeding, notes on life history, and description of immature stages given. Three species of adults bred from the larvae: Phorbia (=Chortophila) floccosa, C. "ketarum n. sp., and Pegomyia vicina n. sp. Similar depredations by these insects observed at Morrisville, N. Y., and at Bennington, Vt., during this same season. 1884. LINTNER, J. A. Insects mining Beet Leaves. (Cultivator and Country Gentleman, Vol. XLIX., Aug. 18, 1884, p. 677 ) Answer to a correspondent who sends from Erie, Pa., beet leaves mined by larvae of AnthomyidcE. Species not determined. Refers to earlier observations of this injury to beets. Advises picking off infested leaves. 1888. BRUNER, L. Report of the Entomologist. (Rep. Neb. State Bd. Agr., pp. 84-130.) Epiccerus inibricatus briefly treated (p. 117), and list of food plants given, in- cluding the beet. 1889. CASSIDY, JAMES. Notes on Insects and Insecticides. (Bull. 6, Col. Agr. Exper. Station, p. 18.) Systena mitts (=tcEniatd) reported to injure beets, etc. 1890. LINTNER, J. A. Notices of Various Insects. (Sixth Rep. State Ent. N.Y., pp. 109-155.) Epicauta vittata extensively treated (p. 132), and beets mentioned among food plants. WEBSTER, F. M. Notes'on Garden Insects. (Insect Life, Vol. III., pp. 148-151. Subjoined statement also in Trans. Ind. Hort. Soc., 1890, p. 26.) Reports beets on grounds of the Indiana Experiment Station seriously injured by Systena blanda (=tcemala). 1891. BRUNER, LAWRENCE. Report on Nebraska Insects. Beet Insects. (Bull. No. 23, U. S. Dept. Agr., Div. Ent , pp. 11-18 ) General description of insect injury to beets in Nebraska during summer of 1890. Notes use of growing beets for shelter against the sun by many insects not feeding upon them. Insect enemies of sugar beets mostly general weed-feeders, especially 1900. J ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 519 those infesting tumble-weeds, pigweed, purslane, and other juicy weeds. None found exclusively injurious to beet. Only very few considered destructive. Those recog- nized either leaf-feeders or root-borers. Publishes list of sixty-four species with brief notes upon injuries by each. Advises clean culture, and use of arsenical sprays except for suctorial insects, and for these the kerosene emulsion. BRUNER, LAWRENCE. Notes on Beet Insects. (Insect Life, Vol. III., No. 5, pp. 229, 230 ) Author's abstract of article read at the second annual meeting of the Association of Economic Entomologists, held at Champaign, 111., Nov. 11-13, 1890. Consists mainly of list of sixty-four species found upon either leaves or root of the sugar beet. Notes fact that most of the common species are usually known as weed-feeding forms. BRUNER, LAWRENCE. Experiments in the Culture of the Sugar Beet in Nebraska. Insect Enemies. (Bull. No. 16, Neb. Agr. Exper. Station, Vol. IV., Art. i., Sugar Beet Series No. II., pp. 55-72; and Fifth Ann. Rep. Neb. Agr. Exper. Station, pp. 55-72.) General article, discussing the garden web-worm, several flea-beetles, blister- beetles, true bugs, leaf-hoppers, cutworms, and wireworms, giving descriptions, illus- trations, habits, and life histories of several of them, with description of injuries to beets and other food plants, and recommendation of remedies. OSBORN, HERBERT, and GOSSARD, H. A. Some Insect Enemies of the Sugar Beet. (Bull. No. 15, Iowa Agr. Exper. Station, Nov. 1891, pp. 265-272.) General article, including observations made at Ames, la., with matter compiled mainly from Bruner. Discusses cutworms, grasshoppers, blister-beetles, flea-beetles, wireworms, true bugs, the clover leaf-hopper, beet lice, and "Insects associated with rotting in Beets." WASHBURN, F. L. A Sugar-Beet Beetle (Monoxia gitttulata}. (Bull. No. 14, Oregon Agr. Exper. Station, p. n; Noticed in Bull. No. 26, U. S. Dept. Agr., Div. Ent., p. ii, and in Bull. No. 18, N. S., p. 95.) Reported as quite destructive to sugar beets in Oregon. A solution of Paris green half a pound to fifty gallons of water with the addition of three pounds of whale-oil soap killed the beetles, but six weeks later they were again at work. Double the above strength of poison was used without injury to the beet leaf. 1892. BRUNER, LAWRENCE. Notes on certain Caterpillars attacking Sugar Beets. (Bull. No. 24, Neb. Agr. Exper. Station, Vol. V., Art. II., Sugar Beet Series, No. IV., PP- 3-7; Sixth Ann. Rep. Neb. Agr. Exper. Station, App., pp. 47-51.) Description of food plants and natural history of some of the garden web-worms, with illustrations of I-.urycreon similis (after Riley). Natural and artificial remedies. BRUNER, LAWRENCE. Report upon Insect Depredations in Nebraska for 1891. Sugar Beet Insects. (Bull. No. 26, U. S. Dept. Agr., Div. Ent., pp. 10, n.) Adds two species to list of Nebraska beet insects, and two others are reported from Oregon. Notes abundance of cutworms, which almost destroyed entire crop on two Experiment Station plats. Observation indicating that fall plowing followed by spring plowing may prevent injury. 520 BULLETIN 'NO. 60. [August, NICHOLSON, H. H., and LLOYD, RACHEL. Experiments in the Culture of the Sugar Beet in Nebraska. (Bull. No. 21, Neb. Agr. Exper. Station, Vol. V., Art. I., Sugar Beet Series No. III., p. 15; Sixth Ann. Rep. Neb. Agr. Exper. Station, App.. p. 15-) Mention of injury to beets by cutworms. Amount of injury as related to previous crop. Destruction by poisoning. SHAW, G. W. Sugar Beet. (Oregon Agr. Exper. Station, Bull. No. 17, p. 15; Bull. No. 44, p. 36.) Under "Enemies," Monoxia guttulata (see Washburn, 1891), Pliyllotrela decipiens, and cutworms are reported as injurious. 1893. BRUNER, LAWRENCE. Report upon Insect Injuries in Nebraska during the Summer of 1892. Beet Insects. (Bull. No. 30, U. S. Dept. Agr., Div. Ent., pp. 36-41.) Describes injuries by Hadronema mililaris, blister-beetles, white grubs (Lach- nosterna), the beet web-worm {Loxostege sticticalis), the garden web-worm (Loxo- stcge similalis), Silpha opaca, and species of Mamestra and Anthomyia. Gives also remedies and preventive measures for blister-beetles and white grubs, and notes on the life histories of L. sticticalis and Anthomyia. BRUNER, LAWRENCE. Something about a few of the Insect Enemies of the Sugar Beet. (Bull. No. 27, Neb. Agr. Exper. Station, Vol. VI., Art. I., Sugar Beet Series, No. V., pp. 30-33.) General preliminary discussion of insects injuring beets in Nebraska, including Hadronema militaris (quite numerous), two or three leaf-hoppers not specified, white grubs (destroying in one case fully fifteen per cent, of the beets), and two or more species of web-worms, the injuries and life history of one of which (Loxostcge sticticalis) is briefly summarized. Results of experiments with arsenical and kero- sene sprays were favorable. Expenses of spraying estimated. LINTNER, J. A. Beet Insects. (Cultivator and Country Gentleman, Vol. LVI., July 16, 1891, p. 577; Ninth Ann. Rep. on the Injurious and other Insects of the State of New York, pp. 374-376.) Describes injuries to beet leaves submitted for examination. Infers attack by tarnished plant-bug, flea-beetles, and leaf-miners. Advises use of kerosene emulsion. RILEY, C. V. The Sugar Beet Web-worm. Loxostege sticticalis Linn. (Rep. of theEatomologist, in Ann. Rep. Dept. Agr. for 1892, pp. 172-175, PI. VI., Fig. 1-3.) Account of outbreaks of this insect in Nebraska beet-fields in 1891 and 1892, with details of its successful treatment with Paris green. Life history given so far as known; also brief descriptions of egg and larva. Moth and larva contrasted with cor- responding stages of the "so-called garden web-worm." RILEY. C. V., and HOWARD, L. O. The Sugar Beet Web-worm. (Insect Life, Vol. V., July, pp. 320-322. Four figures.) Notes additional to the above, with account of experimental economic measures for the destruction of the larval cases in fall. Conclusion reached that most of larvse left undisturbed in beet fields will transform to adults and stock the beet plantations with their eggs probably in June. Three generations believed to occur. Recom- mends application of Paris green solution on first appearance of larvas. ] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 521 1894. BRUNER, LAWRENCE. Report on Injurious Insects in Nebraska and Adjoining Dis- tricts. Sugar Beet Insects. (Bull. No. 32, U. S. Dept. Agr., Div. Ent.. p. 18.) Account of " 7'anymccus confertus as a Sugar Beet Enemy." HOWARD, L. O. Completed Life-history of the Sugar Beet Web-worm. (Insect Life, Vol. VI., pp. 369-373, Fig- 3, 31-) HUSTON, H. A. Sugar Beets. (Bull. No. 49, Purdue Univ. Agr. Exper. Station, Vol. V., March.) Under "Injury from Insects" (p. 33), damage by E-picauta marginata (=(incrca) recorded, with note of remedy used. PIPER, C. V. Small punctured flea-beetle (Psylliodes -punctidatd). (The Ranch June 23, 1894.) Damage to Sugar beets. Remedies. 1895. GILLETTE, C. P., and BAKER, CARL F. A Preliminary List of the Hemiptera of Colorado. (Bull. No. 31, Tech. Ser., No. i, Col. Agr. Exper. Station. 137 pp.) Record from sugar beets the following species: Nysius minutus (p. 22), Geo- coris pallcns (p. 24), Lygus pratensis (p. 36), Agallia uklert'(p. Si), Platymetopius acutus (p. 84), Thamnotcttiy, (=Eutettix) tenella (p. 100), Gnathodus abdominalis (p. 104), and Dactylopius solani? (p. 126); and from "cultivated beet," Tham- notettix (=.Euteltix) belli (p. 94). HOWARD, L. O. The Beet-Leaf Pegomyia (Pegomyia vicina Lintn.). (Insect Life, Vol. VII.. p. 379.) Account of its injuries in sugar-beet fields in California. Figure. 1896. OSBORN, HERBERT. Spraying Mangels for Blister Beetle [Epicauta pennsylvanicd\. (Bull. No. 33, Iowa Agr. Coll. Exper. Station, pp. 597, 598.) A solution of London purple, one pound to two hundred gallons of water, was found to be a very satisfactory spray, costing about one dollar an acre. When sugar beets are attacked by this insect the same treatment, it is said, will be found effective. QUAINTANCE, A. L. Insects Affecting the Beet. (Bull. No. 34, Fla. Agr. Exper. Station, March, 1896, pp. 264-266.) Brief general account of blister-beetles, cutworms, and wireworms, with refer- ence to miscellaneous insects affecting the beet. SIRRINE, F. A. The Spinach Leaf Maggot or Miner, Pegomyia vicina. (Fourteenth Ann. Rep. Bd. of Control, N. Y. Agr. Exper. Station, pp. 625-633, PI. IV.) General article. Known only to feed on Chcnopodium, beets, and spinach. 1898. CHITTENDEN, F. H. A New Sugar-Beet Beetle. (Bull. No. 18, N. S., U. S. Dept. Agr., Div. Ent., p. 95.) Reports serious local injury to sugar beet by Monoxia puncticollis in N. Mex. Gives correspondent's notes on life history. Principal damage by larva. 522 BULLETIN NO. 60. [August, SAUNDERS, D. A. Four Injurious Insects. (Bull. No. 57, U. S. Exper. Station, S. Dak., pp. 35-52.) Lioderma (=Pcntatoma) uhleri and Eptcauta maculata treated. Said to attack beets; the former new as a beet insect. SAYLOR, CHAS. F. Beet-Sugar Industry in the United States. (House Document 396, 55th Congress, ad Session; Separate Reprint. 72 pp.) On pp. 224 and 231 are given answers by correspondents in Nebraska, California, and New Mexico to the question, "What are the obstacles you encounter, including diseases, insects, etc.?" WILCOX, E. V. An Army Cutworm. (Bull. No. 17, Mont. Agr. Exper. Station, pp. 10-18.) Description of an excessive outbreak of Chorizagrotis agrestis, with an exten- sive list of plants attacked, including beets. 1899. COCKERELL, T. D. A. Megetra vittata injuring Sugar Beets. (Ent. News, Vol. X., p. 44.) Reported by a correspondent in New Mexico. Comment on coloration of the two specimens sent. FELT, E. P. Notes of the Year for New York. (Bull. No. 20, N. S., U. S. Dept. Agr., Div. Ent., p. 60.) Reports injury by Systenafrontalis to sugar beets in N. Y. Insect killed by spraying with Paris green. <3iLLETTE, C. P. The Sugar-Beet Caterpillar. (Special Press Bulletin, Col. Agr. Exper. Station, Aug. 19, 1899.) Injuries to sugar beets in Colorado by Laphygma flavimaculata reported. Spraying with Paris green recommended. PETTIT, RUFUS H. Some Insects of the Year 1898. 13. Leaf-miner in Sugar-Beet. (Bull. 175, Mich. State Agr. Coll. Exper. Station, pp. 356, 357, Fig. 14.) Pegomyia vicina reported mining sugar-beet leaves in Michigan. Imago figured. STONE, ]. L. Sugar-Beet Investigations for 1898. Part I. Observations and Con- clusions based upon a Study of Field Conditions. (Bull. 166, Cornell Univ. Agr. Exper. Station, March, pp. 419-438.) "Enemies of the Beet Crop " (p. 425); Systena tceniata, S> hudsonias, and Pegomyia vicina reported as common beet-feeders, but no considerable damage done. 1900. CHITTENDEN, F. H. The Pale-striped Flea-beetle (Systena blanda Mels.). (Bull. No. 23, N. S., U. S. Dept. Agr., Div. Eat., pp. 22-29.) Detailed account of this species as an enemy of cultivated plants, including sugar beets. DOANE, R. W. A New Sugar Beet Insect, and other Insects attacking the Beet. (Bull. No. 42, Wash. State Agr. Exper. Station. 14 pp., 4 figures.) . Detailed account of the beet aphis (Pemphigus beUc) and its injuries to sugar beets; also brief treatment of flea-beetles, especially Psylliodes punctidata, and of cutworms, in particular Carneades messoria, as beet insects. IpOO.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 523 DOANE, R. W. Notes on a New Sugar-Beet Pest, with a Description of the Species. (Ent. News, Vol. XL, No. 3, pp. 390, 391.) Description of Pemphigus betcc, with note of extent and character of its injuries to the sugar beet in Washington State, and a brief account of its life history. GILLETTE, C. P. The Beet Army Worm (Laphygma Jlavimaculata). (The Sugar Beet, July, 1900, p. 103*; Twelfth Ann. Rep. Col. Agr. Exper. Station, p. 39 briefer account of same outbreak.) Account of injuries to beets in Colorado in August, 1899. Many acres com- pletely stripped of foliage; body of the beet also injured. Items of life history given. Arsenical poisons tested successfully. Arsenate of lead preferred. One pound to a hundred gallons of water used without injury to beets. Occurrence of insect reported at various Colorado points and at Lehi, Utah. Figure of injured beets. * Received after the paragraphs on this species (in preceding article) were in type. ERRATA. On page 423, under Eutettix tenella Uhl., the synonym Thamnotettix lenella Uhl. should have been placed; and on page 464, line i, yellovt-back should read ye\\ov/-(>/ack. All the figures of the plates except Fig. i, Plate III., and Figures 29, 31, 58, 65, 72, 84, and 85 in the text, drawn by the Artist of the State Laboratory of Natural History, Miss L. M. Hart, are published in this paper for the first time. Figures 18-21, 27, 28, 30, 39-41, 45, 49, 53, 55, 56, 60, 69-71, 73, 74, 76, 81, 86, 88, and 89-97 have all been published in the Reports of the State Entomologist of Illinois. 524 BULLETIN NO. 60. {A it gu sty. PLATE I. Fig. i. Stobera tricarinata. i Fig. 2. Liburnia puella. Fig. 3. Liburnia ornata. DELPHACINE LEAF-HOPPERS. ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OK THE SUGAR BEET. 525 PLATE II. Fig. i. Cicadida scxnolata. Fig. 2. Dcltoceplialus nigrifrons. Fig. 3- Empoasca mali. Fig. 4. Emfoasca flarescens. GREEN LEAF-HOPPERS. 526 BULLETIN NO. 60. PLATE III. [August, Fig. i. The Grape Leaf-hoppers, Typhlocyba. Leaf showing effect of injury, and, on under side, the cast skins and the young; at left, young of different ages; at right, adults of T. vidnerata (upper) and T. comes (lower). (Lugger.) Fig. 2. I'hlepsitis irroratus. Fig. 3. The False Flea-hopper, Agal- liastes associatiis. 1900. J ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. PLATE IV. 5 2 7 Fig. i. The Green Lfaf-bug. Macrocoleus chlorionis. Fig. 2. The Three-spotted Flea-beetle, Disonycha triangularis. 528 BULLETIN NO. 60. PLATE V. Fig. i. Larva, dorsal view. \August, Fig. 2. Larva, side view. Fig. 3. Face of larva. Fig 4. Pupa. Fig. 5. Adult. Fig. 6. Eggs on leaf. THE YELLOW-BLACK FLEA-BEETLE, DISONYCHA XANTHOMEL.ENA. 1900.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET, PLATE VI. 529 r Fig. i. Beet-leaf riddled by the Yellow-Black Flea-beetle, Disonycha xanthomehcna. 53 BULLETIN NO. 60. PLATE VII. [August, Fig. i. Epitrix brcris. Fig. 2. Gfyptina brunnea. FLEA-BEETLES. 1 900.] ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY OF THE SUGAR BEET. 531 PLATE VIII. Fig. i. The Smart weed Flea-beetle, Systena hudsonias. Fig. 2. The Red-headed Flea-beetle, Systena frontalis. FLEA-BEETLES, SYSTENA. S3 2 BULLETIN NO. 60. PLATE IX. [August, Fig. i. The Grape-vine Colaspis, Colasfis brnnnca. Fig. 2. The Muck Beetle, Ligynts gibbosus. INDEX, Ambrosia . 282 Ammoniacal carbonate of copper solution 203 Apple scab fungus 185-204 Apple orchards, acreage in Illinois. . . 182 Arsenite of lime 393 Aspidiotus obscurus 271 Barley, loose and covered smut of. ... 317 Beets, see sugar beets. Blair, J. C 114, 204, 395 Blue grass, leaf smut of 348 Bordeaux mixture 203, 391, 392 Broom corn, grain smut of 335 Burrill, T. J 114 Carbohydrates of corn denned 207 Ceres pulver for smuts 294, 310, 311 Chilocorus bivulnerus 283 Cintractia Reiliana 346 Cintractia sorghi-vulgaris 335 Clean cultivation for orchards 109, in Clinton, G. P 349 Clover for orchards no, in Codlin moth 185 Copper sulphate solution 203, 294, 296, 310, 311 Corn Analysis of one variety. 149 Analysis of different ears 150-154 Analysis of single kernels 154-157 Circular of inquiry to farmers.... 58-9 Cost of production 70 i Corn ash Defined 207 Determination of 143, 157 Corn complete composition 157 Corn composition Carbohydrates 164 Dextrine 167 Fiber 167 Pentosans 167 Proteids 159 Starch 167 Sucrose 167 Corn, dry matter determination of, 141-143 Corn fat Denned 207 Determination of 147-149 To influence content 224 Corn fodder, digestibility of 362-365 Corn improvement in chemical com- position 205-240 Corn kernel, mechanical study of, 217, 230 Corn nitrogen, determination of 144 Corn, oil of . . 169 Corn protein Defined 207 To influence content 210 Corn proximate composition Historical 130-141 Experimental 141 Corn smut, see Indian corn. Corn stover digestibility of 366-369 Corrosive sublimate 294, 311 Davenport, E 22, 103 Forbes, S. A 283, 517 Formalin 294, 296, 311, 312, 348 Fraser, W. J 103 Fruit bark beetle 280 Fungus of sugar beets 17 Grain smut of Hungarian grass 347 Grain smut of sorghum and broom corn Damage 337 Experiments 338-346 Life history 335 Treatment 336 Grass for orchard iio-ni Hart, C. A 517 Head smut of sorghum 346 Holden, P. G 52 Hopkins, C. G 52, 180, 240, 370 Hot water treatment 294, 296, 308, 310, 311, 313, 315, 318, 320 Hungarian grass, smut of 347 Illinois as a sugar producing state Advantages 23 Coal and lime 21 Labor 21 Quality of beets 20 Transportation and markets 23 Water 22 Yield 20 Indian corn, smut of 321 Indian corn and teosinte smut Damage 322 Experiments 324-325 Infection 325-327 (533) 534 BULLETIN NO. 60. [Augus-t, Life history 321-322 Prevention 325-327 Relation to land 329-335 Insect enemies of San Jose scale Chilocorus bivulnerus 283 Pentilia misella 283 Insects of sugar beets 17, 397-532 Classification of 403-404 Preventive and remedial measures 400-403 Technical list of SM^S 1 ? Insects of sugar beets, common names Army-worm 495 Ash colored blister-beetle 488 Beet aphis 507 Beet army-worm 498 Beet carrion-beetle 484 Beet leaf -miners 407 Beet web-worm 457 Black blister-beetle 489 Black vine-weevil 492 Black-winged grasshopper 479 Cabbage flea-beetle 471 Cabbage Plusia 500 Celery Plusia 501 Cigar-case bearer 494 Clay-colored weevil 492 Common garden web-worm 456 Common flower bug 434 Common gray blister-beetle 487 Common grass- worm 497 Common negro-bugs 447 Common red-legged grasshopper... 481 Common red spiders 406 Corn flea-beetle 466 Cotton cut worm 496 Dusky leaf-bug 437, 440 European beet-tortoise-beetle 472 False chinch-bug 443 False flea hopper 436 Garden flea-hopper 436 Garden Mamestra 499 Grape-leaf hoppers 427 Grape-vine colaspis 473 Greasy cut worm 452 Green beet leaf-worm 499 Green flata 431 Greenhouse leaf-roller 453 Green leaf -bug 438 Hedge hog caterpillar 504 Imbricated snout-beetle 491 Imported garden web-worm 459 Large-eyed purslane bug 443 Larger meadow grasshopper 483 Large striped-flea-beetle 463 Leaf-hoppers 410-427 Lubber grasshopper 480 Margined blister-beetle 489 Mealy flata 431 Melon aphis 429 Muck beetle 513 Northern corn rootworm 475 Nuttall's blister-beetle 490 Pale-striped flea-beetle 468 Pigweed bug 433 Purslane-caterpillar 502 Purslane-sphinx 503 Red-headed flea-beetle 468 Rhubarb flea-beetle 472 Root mealy bug 509 Salt-marsh caterpillar 504 Smar tweed flea-beetle 467 Southern corn root worm 473 Spotted blister-beetle 487 Spotted cutworm 451 Striped blister-beetle 488 Striped cucumber beetle 474 Sweet-potato flea-beetle 467 Tarnished plant-bug 438 Three-spotted flea-beetle 463 Tree-hoppers 428 Western army-cutworm 450 Western cabbage flea-beetle 471 Western green stink-bug 445 White grubs 511 Wire worms 509 Yellow-black flea-beetle 464 Yellow grasshopper 479 Zebra-caterpillar 501 Kerosene emulsion 202, 401 Kerosene and water by " Kerowater " pump 202 Kinley, David 54 Oats- Circular of inquiry as to cost 58-9 Cost of production 72-3 Oat smut, see loose and hidden. Oats for orchard 109, 1 1 1 Orchard Clean cultivation 109 In oats 109 In clover no In corn no In grass no Orchard cultivation Cost 112 Tools and process in Orchard management Cultivation 373~38i Fertility 383-388 Preparation for planting trees 113 Pruning 381-383 Reasons for unproductive orchards. 372 Spraying 388 Leaf, smut of timothy, red top, blue grass 348 Lepidinm 282 Literature upon sugar beets 51 Localities of San Jose scale in Illinois Increase in old 245-247 New 243-245 Loos"e and covered smut of barley Damage 3 J 8 Life history 3*7 Prevention 3 J 8 i goo. ] INDEX. 535 Loose and hidden smut of oats Damage 298-305 Hot water experiments 313 Life history 297 Miscellaneous experiments 3 5~3og Prevention experiments 39-3 l 3 Loose smut of wheat Damage 318 Life history 319 Prevention 319 London purple 202 Lysol 294 Meteorological records for 1889-1897. 5 iricrocera sp 276 Milk variation and milk production Beginning of period of lactation. . . . 100 Behavior near close of lactation period 99 Composition of first and last milk drawn 101 Comparison of two cows 102 Daily variation 98 In fat 80-81 In individual cows 84-97 In solids not fat ." 81-82 In total solids 82 Nursery inspection Certificate 248 Expenses of 250 Inspectors 249 List of nurseries inspected 250 Palmer, A. W 23 Paris green 202, 391, 401, 402, 403 Pcntilia misclla 283 Potassium sulphid 294, 296, 310, 311 Prevention of smut By chemicals 293, 310, 311 By clean seed 293 By hot water 294, 310, 313 Conclusions 316 Theory 292 Red top, see leaf smut of 348 Rolfe, C. W. 22 San Jose scale Details of treatment 256-266 Difficulties of co-operation 266-69 Efficient fungous disease 270-280 Experiments with sprays 280-282 Food plants 282 General insecticide procedure. . .269-270 Increase in old localities 245-247 Insect enemies of 283 Insecticide treatment 251-270 Insecticide apparatus 254-256 Miscellaneous field notes 282 New Illinois localities 243-245 Nursery inspection ... .247-251 Results of treatment 256-266 Scolytus rugulosiis 280 Seed corn, selection by analysis 207 Setaria italica 347 Smuts Damage done by 291-292 General structure 289-290 Grain smut of Hungarian grass .... 347 Grain smut of sorghum and broom corn 335 Head smut of sorghum 346 Kinds of 290-291 Of Indian corn and teosinte 321 Prevention of 292-296 Leaf smut of timothy, red top, and blue grass 348 Loose and covered of barley. . . .317-318 Loose and hidden of oats 297 Loose of wheat 318 Stinking, of wheat 319 Tall oat grass 316-317 Solatium 282 Sorghum Grain smut of . . 335 Head smut of 346 Sfhfcrostilbe coccophila 270-280 Spraying apple trees Applications 188-191, 388 Experiments 188 Machinery 195-201 Solutions . . -. 201-204, 39 1 Specific directions 185 Stink smut of wheat Damage 320 Life history 319 Prevention 320 Sugar beets Analysis of 6-15 Analysis of experiment station beets 18-19 Farmer's contract to factory 25 Insects of 397~532 List of insects 514-51? Literature 51 Meteorological records 5 Statistics 48-51 What the Experiment Station has done and proposes to do 1-2 Sugar beet culture Cultivating 33 General 41 Havesting , 36 Highly bred seed 42 Hoeing 34 Labor 41 Plowing 30 Preparation of seed bed 31 Production of seed 42 Seeding 32 Siloing 36 Soil 30 Thinning out 34 Sugar making, cost and profits of ... .43-7 Tall oat grass, smut of 316 Teosinte, smut of 321 Tilletiafoetens 319 Timothy, leaf smut of 348 Twice-stabled lady-bird 283 Ustilago avente 297 536 BULLETIN NO. 60. [August, i goo. Ustilago crameri 347 Ustilago hordei 317 Ustilago mida 317 Ustilago levis 297 Ustilago perenans 316 Ustilago striaeformis 348 Uslilago tritici 318 Ustilago zeae 321 Whale oil soap 203 Wheat- Loose smut of 318 Stinking smut of 319-321 Weston, N. A 53-69 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA