110 MANUAL OF VEGETABLE-GARDEN INSECTS 



The beetles hibernate under trash or, when such protection 

 is not available, in the ground below the frost line. They 

 emerge from hibernation in the spring from April to June, the 

 exact date depending on the locality and the season. They 

 usually appear before cucurbit plants are up and feed for some 

 time on the pollen of flowers and on the leaves of certain plants, 

 apple, horse-chestnut, wild thorn, elm, syringa, juneberry and 

 many others. The beetles, hungry after their long winter's 

 fast, congregate on squash and cucumber plants just as they 

 are coming up and feed on the tender leaves and gnaw holes 



in the stems often just at the sur- 

 face of the ground. ]Many plants 

 are killed outright while others are 

 so injured that they make only a 

 sickly growth. Okra is sometimes 

 attacked. 



The beetle (Fig. 68) is from A to 

 ^ inch in length ; the head is black ; 

 the thorax yellow and the wing- 

 covers yellow with three longitudinal 

 black stripes, the lateral pair not ex- 

 tending to the tip. After feeding 

 for some time, the beetles mate and 

 the female begins egg-laying. Oviposition has been found to 

 begin in Kentucky about the middle of June, on Long Island, 

 New York, towards the last of June and in New Hampshire, 

 about the first of July. Oviposition continues for about a 

 month. Each female is capable of laying from seventy-five to 

 one hundred eggs. The egg is about -^ inch long, -^ inch wide, 

 oval or elliptical in outline and light yellow in color. Some of 

 the eggs are deposited in crevices in the ground but many are 

 dropped by the female wherever she happens to be feeding. 

 Eggs are sometimes found caught in the hairs of the leaves at 

 the tip of the vines. The eggs hatch in a week or more and the 



Fig. 68. — The striped cucum 

 ber beetle (X 5|). 



