PEACH INSECTS 299 



tack ripening fruits. Of the life history of the latter, little is 

 known. The adult of the former is a yellowish-brown beetle, 

 ^ inch or more in length, with its wing-covers sprinkled all over 

 with small, irregular black dots. The beetles appear in late 

 summer and feed on the pollen of flowers, ripe fruit and corn in 

 the milk. They go into hibernation and very early the next 

 spring may be seen flying close to the ground with a loud, buzzing 

 sound. The female deposits her white, nearly spherical eggs 

 in the vicinity of manure heaps, in piles of rotting sod and other 

 decaying vegetable matter. When full-grown the larva is some- 

 what over an inch in length, strongly curved and dirty white 

 in color ; the posterior part of the body has a dull leaden hue 

 from the contents of the alimentary canal. It differs from the 

 white grub (Lachnosterna) in its shorter and more robust form, 

 in the shorter legs and smaller head, and in its habit of crawling 

 upon its back. In July the larvae pupate within earthen cocoons 

 of a somewhat angular external form. The beetles emerge 

 during August and September. There is only one generation 

 a year. 



Hand-pi(;king of the beetles is apparently the most practicable 

 means of controlling this insect when it is found working on ripe 

 fruit or on green corn. 



References 



Slingerland, Can. Ent. XXIX, pp. 50-52. 1897. 

 U. S. Bur. Ent. Bull. 19, pp. 67-74. 1899. 



Peach Stop-back 



From Missouri to Alabama, Virginia and northward, nursery- 

 men often experience serious losses from an obscure trouble 

 with peach nursery stock, commonly known as stop-back or 

 peach-sting. When the budded trees are 18 inches to 2 feet 

 in height, the terminal bud turns brown, withers and dies. 

 The stopping of growth of the main branch forces the develop- 



