178 INSECTS AFFECTING THE SQUASH. 



The insect does not confine itself to squashes and 

 cucumbers, but feeds upon a great variety of other 

 plants. 



Remedies. — Powdered tobacco has been found to 

 be the best preventive of the injuries of flea-beetles. 

 When used against the Striped Cucumber-beetle, it 

 will take effect upon the present pest as well. 



The Squash Bug-. 



Anasa tristis. 

 The Squash Bug is too familiar to gardeners to 

 need a detailed description here. It is a rusty -black, 

 flattened bug, about half an inch long, with the 

 under side ochre-yellow, and has a very repulsive 

 * buggy ' odor. This insect winters over as an adult, 

 beneath boards, logs, leaves, or other protective cov- 

 ■ering, and appears in the squash patch late in spring 

 or early in summer. The females then deposit their 

 brownish-yellow, spherical eggs on the under sides 

 •of the leaves in patches varying from three or four 

 to a score or more. In a few days the young bugs, 

 or nymphs, hatch, and insert their pointed beaks 

 into the leaf and suck out the sap. At first they are 

 more or less gregarious, the bugs from a single lot of 

 eggs feeding together, but as they grow older they 

 gradually disperse over the plants, casting their skins 

 occasionally during their development. Like all 

 true bugs, the transformations of this species are in- 

 complete. The young bear a general resemblance 

 to the adults, and the insect remains active in the 

 stage corresponding to that of the pupa. Leaves 



