126 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO FOREST AND SHADE TREES. 
3. THE LINDEN LEAF-BEETLE. 
Chrysomela scalaris Leconte. 
Order COLEOPTERA ; family CHRYSOMELID.®. 
Injuring the leaves, a stout-bodied beetle with silvery wing-covers spotted with 
green, laying eggs on the leaves in the spring, from which fat, thick-bodied white 
grubs develop, with a lateral row of large black dots, which also prey on the 
leaves. 
While this beautiful and abundant beetle is more common on the 
alder, it also occurs on the lime-tree and elm. They may be found on 
these trees in April, May, and June, and a second brood in September 
and October. We have taken them in coitu on the alder in Maine the 
middle of May. The grubs are hatched from eggs laid by the beetles 
on the leaves in spring and come to their growth towards the end of 
June in Massachusetts, according to Harris, who believes that they go 
into the ground to turn to pupe. 
The beetle is about three-tenths of an inch in length, the body almost oval, hemis- 
pherical; head, thorax, and under side of the body dark green, the wing-covers silvery 
white, ornamented with small green spots on the sides, and a broad jagged stripe 
along the suture or inner edges; the antenne and legs are rust red, and the wings 
rose-colored. 
The larva is short and thick, the back curving up in the middle about six-tenths of 
an inch long, white, with a black line along the top of the back, and a row of small 
square black spots on each side of the body; the head is horny, and of an ochre yel- 
low. (Harris. ) 
Since the foregoing account was prepared, we have during the past 
summer observed this beetle in all its stages. At Brunswick, Maine, 
during July and August, 1881, it was very abundant on the numerous 
linden trees in the campus of Bowdoin College, eating rounded holes in 
the leaves and causing them to turn yellow and unsightly, as if to pre- 
maturely fall. Nearly every tree and, in some cases, nearly every leaf 
ona tree was infested by the disgusting pale grubs, while scattered 
patches of eggs occurred on the under side of the leaves; and during 
the first to last of August the beetles were found not uncommonly upon 
the leaves. The trees could be protected by showering the leaves with 
London purple in water when the grubs first appear latein June. From 
these specimens the following descriptions were drawn up: 
Lyg.—Rather large, oval cylindrical, yellow, several together attached by one end; 
about 1.5™™ in length. : 
Larva.—Body very thick, curved up like that of the grub of the Colorado potato- 
beetle, being much swollen behind the thoracic segments, while the tip of the abdo- 
men is curved down. Head honey-yellow, darker over the jaws; antennz bluish, 
except at base; eyes black. Prothoracic shield blackish in the young before the last 
molt; in full-grown individuals not all black, but pale, with four irregularly square 
black spots. Body behind dirty white, with a row of dorsal and lateral dusky spots. 
Legs pale, spotted with black at the joints. A pair of meso-thoracic spiracles. and 8 
