500 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



dusting with freshly shiked lime, and one part of Paris green should 

 be added to twenty parts of lime, or by spraying with any of the ar- 

 senical poisons or dusting with hellebore. Any of the spray li.iuids 

 for killing leaf-eating insects, such as caterpillars, will destroy these 

 slugs, and because their bodies are slimy and moist they are killed bv 

 the lime dust the same as are the asparagus beetles. 



The Beetles, or Coleoptera. 



Belonging to the "hard-shfUed" iuvsects, or Coleoptera, generally 

 known by their common name of Beetles, are many species, which 

 in both the adult and lar^'al stages attack vegetation either above or 

 beneath the surface of the ground. These insects have four distinct 

 stages in their life history, recognized at once as the egg, the grub or 

 larva, the pupa, and the imago or adult. 



Among the insects which are very destructive, both in the larval or 

 grub stage, and in the adult or beetle state, is the one commonlv 

 known as the May Beetle, May Bug, June Bug, Dor Beetle, Drone 

 Beetle, and other common names in the adult or winged stage, and 

 familiar as the White Grub or "Grub Worm" in the larval stage. 

 There is at most, but one brood of this insect per year, the adult 

 appearing in May and June, sometimes flying around lights at nights, 

 in great number, and feeding at night upon the leaves of trees. 

 They eat or cut away a great amount of the foliage. The eggs are 

 laid in the ground, generalh- at the roots of grasses or other kinds 

 of vegetation, and the larvae there feed and grow. Their growth and 

 transformation are slow, some species requiring two or three years 

 for the completion of life in the larval stage. They then pupate or 

 transform to chrysalids in cells in the earth, in which they pass 

 the winter and come forth as the familiar large round June Bugs or 

 May Beetles belonging to the springtime. 



These insects remain and feed in the ground to such an extent as 

 sometimes to eat the roots of the grass entirely away, turning it 

 brown and making it possible to roll it back like the fleece of sheep. 

 ^Vhere they are present in lawns we have used Carbon Bisulfide 

 against them with success. Make a hole at a depth of about a foot, 

 using some pointed instrument like a stick, and pour at least one- 

 fourth teaspoon.ful of Carbon Bisulfide into each hole, making about 

 three of them to each square javd of ground to be treated. Tramp 

 the holes tightly after pouring the liquid in and thus prevent its 

 too rapid evaporation. Where the pests are common in the soil in 

 greenhouses and oven in gardens they are to be killed by poison 

 bait, such as poison bran mash, the same as cutworms. It is par 

 ticularly important in orchards to keep the ground clean of weeds 

 and grasses as these pests can be suppressed without difficulty by 

 clean cultivation. v,'hich is likewise best for trees. 



* * * Th*^ Flower Beetle, or "Fig-eaters." are insects which in 

 their larval stage are grubs feeding upon organic material, such as 

 manure, or sometimes the roots of plants, and their mature stage 

 they are liable to attack leaves and fruits, injuring them severely. 

 There is also not more than one generation or brood of these per 

 year. The life history is similar to that of the June Bug or May 

 Beetle, and the remedies are practically the same. For both pests it 



