104 INSECTS WHICH PEEY UPON AGRICULTURAL PLANTS. 



variety), and pointed. Tliey are often seen during harvest and 

 the raising of root crops. 



Melolontha vulgaris (the Common Cockchafer). — This insect 

 is very injurious to the young plants of wheat, rye, mangold- 

 wurzel, &c., living on their roots while in the larval state. The 

 grubs are thick and fleshy, white or yellowish in colour, with 

 strong jaws, and three pairs of legs. They feed on roots for 

 three years, and at the end of this time, when full grown, 

 descend into the earth to a depth of two or three feet and 

 change to pupee. During the next winter they develop into 

 perfect chafers and emerge in the summer, thus taking four 

 years to go through all their stages. The beetle is about one 

 inch in length, face and wing cases of a rusty brown, with 

 lighter ferruginous spots across them, and the extremity of the 

 abdomen (which is exposed) is of a black colour, and pointed 

 downwards. 



Crioceris melanojKc (the Oat Crioceris). — The slug-like larva of 

 this beetle attacks the leaves of oats just as they are coming into 

 ear, and eats the epidermis in longitudinal lines. The beetle is 

 of a black or dark green shining colour. The thorax is reddish- 

 orange, often with two dusky spots on the disc : antennae twice 

 as long as the thorax, the latter being rather small comparatively : 

 eyes black and prominent. They are plentiful from the middle 

 of April to the end of September. 



Cassida nebulosa (the Clouded Shield Beetle). — The larvae are 

 oval- shaped, of a pretty green colour, and live on the under side 

 of the leaves of mangold. The head of the beetle is concealed 

 under a large, broad, shield-like thorax ; the whole of the body 

 is tawny coloured, and about one-fourth of an inch in length. 



Silpha opaca (the Beet Carrion Beetle). — The usual food of 

 this insect is dead animals, but the larvae feed on mangold leaves, 

 and may be found in May or June on beetroot. They resemble 

 the wood-lice (" slaters ") very much when full grown, and change 

 to pupae in the earth. The beetle which emerges is of a dark 

 brown or blackish colour, with a broad thorax and large 

 triangular " scutellum." There are three large striae down each 

 elytron, with a bump between the second and third beyond the 

 middle. Xeither salt nor lime affects them, and tliey appear to 

 be bred in the field, as the beetles appear on the flowering stalks 

 after July. 



BrucJms pisi. — The Pea "Bug" deposits its eggs during the 

 night in the newly-formed pea pods — one opposite each pea — 

 and the little, soft, whitish apodal maggot penetrates into the 

 pea, in which it lives during the summer and through the winter, 

 and comes out in spring, leaving only the empty shell. It does 

 not touch the germ, so that the pea will still germinate, though 

 it will only yield a sickly plant. The beetle is of a black colour. 



