120 COLEOPTERA. 



The only method that occurs to me, by means of which 

 we may get rid of them, when they are so numerous as to 

 be seriously injurious to plants, is to brush them from the 

 leaves into shallow vessels containing a little salt and water 

 or vinegar. 



The habits of the Hispas, little leaf-beetles, forming the 

 family Hispad^e, were first made known by me in the year 

 1835, in the " Boston Journal of Natural History," * where 

 a detailed account of them, with descriptions of three native 

 species, and figures of the larvse and pupa?, may be found. 

 The upper side of the beetles is generally rough, as the 

 generical name implies. The larvae burrow under the skin 

 of the leaves of plants, and eat the pulpy substance within, 

 so that the skin, over and under the place of their opera- 

 tions, turns brown and dries, and has somewhat of a blistered 

 appearance, and within these blistered spots the larvie or 

 grubs, the pup^e, or the beetles may often be found. The 

 eggs of these insects are little rough blackish grains, and 

 are glued to the surface of the leaves, sometimes singly, and 

 sometimes in clusters of four or five together. The grubs 

 of our common species are about one fifth of an inch in 

 length, when fully grown. The body is oblong, flattened, 

 rather broader before than behind, soft, and of a whitish 

 color, except the head and the top of the first ring, which 

 are brown, or blackish, and of a horny consistence. It has 

 a pair of legs to each of the first three rings ; the other 

 rings are provided with small fleshy warts at the sides, and 

 transverse rows of little rasp-like points above and beneath. 

 The pu])a state lasts only about one week, soon after Avhich 

 the beetles come out of their burrows. 



The leaves of the apple-tree are inhabited by some of these 

 little mining insects, which in the beetle state are probably 

 the Hispa rosea ^ of Weber, or the rosy Hispa (Fig. 54). 

 They are of a deep or tawny reddish-yellow color above, 

 marked with little deep red lines and spots. The head is 



* Vol I. p. 141. t Ilispa qunilraia, Fabricius; //. marginata, Say. 



