UNCLASSIFIED PESTS 



345 



Fig. 215. — A white grub 



(X U). 



The parent beetles are most abundant in May and June. 

 They feed at night on the leaves of various trees, but at day- 

 break they desert these and return to the fields. The females 

 burrow into the soil to a depth of two 

 or three inches and there deposit their 

 eggs singly or in small groups. Each 

 female is capable of laying from fifty 

 to one hundred eggs. The eggs are 

 oval, white, and have a diameter of 

 about tV inch. They lie in small cells 

 composed of soil particles glued to- 

 gether with a sticky substance secreted 

 by the beetle. The eggs hatch in ten 

 days to several weeks. The young grubs feed throughout the re- 

 mainder of that season on the roots of grasses a short distance 

 below the surface of the ground. With the approach of cold 

 weather, they burrow deeper into the soil and hibernate at a 

 depth of ten or twelve inches. The following spring they re- 

 turn to the grass roots, on 

 which they feed through- 

 out the season. The 

 grubs of some species 

 reach maturity at the 

 end of the second sum- 

 mer, but in the case of 

 our more common species 

 the grubs are not full- 

 grown at that time. In 

 the latter case, the grubs 

 again descend into the 

 soil for hibernation and 

 return to the grass roots in the spring of the third year. After 

 feeding for a period, they become full-grown in June or July. 

 The grub then constructs an oval earthen cocoon in which it 



Fig. 21G. — Two .species of June beetles, 

 the adults of the white grub Lachnosterna 

 ilicis and L. hirticula. 



