CHAPTER X. 

 DTSEOTS AFFECTING THE TWIGS AND LEAVES. 

 INSECTS OF THE ORDER HYMENOPTERA. 



LEAF-EATING ANT. 



{Monomorium carbonarium Sm.) 



A small black ant eats holes in the leaves of orange trees when they 

 are very young and tender, but seldom does any damage beyond de- 

 stroying a leaf or two, which in most cases the plant can very well 

 spare. Should this ant, however, become destructive, it may be com 

 batted in the same way as the Solenopsis mentioned in the preceding 

 chapter. A band of fnr around the trunk of the tree will prevent their 

 ascending. 



INSECTS OF THE ORDER COLEOPTERA. 

 BRACHYS OVATA (Web.). 



This small beetle, belonging to the family Buprestidfe, is frequently 

 met with upon the leaves, in which it occasionally eats small holes. 

 The beetle is 5™"' {-^o inch) long and nearly the same in width. The 

 body is flattened, or very slightly convex, and shield-shaped. The 

 color is a mixture, finely mottled, of dark and light bronze. When dis- 

 turbed, the legs are drawn into grooves in the underside of the body 

 and the beetle falls to the ground, where it bears a remarkably close 

 resemblance to the seeds of some of the common wild vetches. The beetle 

 has not hitherto been known to do appreciable damage to plants of the 

 citrus family. Its natural food is the Oak, upon which its strangely-flat 

 tened larv;ie live as leaf-miners, excavating galleries in the narrow space 

 between the upper and lower surfaces of the leaves, and feeding upon 

 the parenchyma. 



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