34 SOME INSECTS INJURIOUS TO TRUCK CROPS. 
and did very little damage to the hop vines until 1903. During that 
spring the beetles appeared in large numbers and held the vines back 
for some time, but by the persistent use of tarred boards they 
were kept in check and the crop saved. During the seasons of 1904— 
1908 the beetles gradually increased in numbers, reaching their maxi- 
mum destructiveness in 1908. 
As soon as the hops began pushing through the ground the beetles 
were observed swarming around the vines, giving the soil in the 
immediate vicinity a black, metallic appearance. These swarms of 
flea-beetles devoured the hop shoots as fast as they appeared, and in 
places where the vines were a foot or more on the string the attack 
was so severe that in a few days the field looked as if it had been 
burned over. This infestation resulted in a loss of about 75 per cent 
of the crop in the Chilliwack and 
Agassiz valleys. 
LIFE HISTORY. 
THE EGGS. 
Descriptive.—The eggs of Psylliodes 
punctulata (fig. 8) are one-third of 
a millimeter long, about one-half as 
wide, ellipto-cylindrical in shape, and 
quite yellow in color. They are very 
hard to distinguish, unless in clusters, 
without the aid of a hand lens, and 
when mixed with soil it is almost 1m- 
Fic. 8.—The hop flea-beetle (Psyl- possible to find them. 
liodes punctulata) : Eggs. Greatly Where laid—Beetles which were 
enlarged. (Original.) : : 5 
confined in lamp-chimney breeding 
devices were observed to oviposit upon hop leaves and pieces of 
paper and upon the sides and bottoms of the chimneys. One morn- 
ing, upon moving a cage which had a cheese-cloth base, the writer 
discovered several hundred eggs which had been deposited between 
the cloth and the table. As this appeared to be an excellent way to 
obtain eggs in large numbers, several cages were accordingly fitted 
up, and to make conditions as natural as possible, were placed over 
moist soil. Hundreds of eggs were obtained in this manner and 
were in a very convenient situation for handling. In order to obtain 
egos under more natural conditions, large numbers of beetles were 
confined in tin cylinders which had been sunk in the soil inclosing 
the roots of a vine. Two weeks later when the soil in these cylinders 
was examined, eggs were found 14 to 2 inches below the surface. A 
few single eggs laid in the field were observed near the base of a 
82 
