26 Farmers’ Bulletin 1220. 
ing the infested vines with a contact insecticide, such as 40 per cent 
nicotine sulphate, fish-oil soap solution, kerosene emulsion, and the 
like. 
THE GRAPE FLEA-BEETLE.” 
Early in the spring as they are ready to burst, buds of the grape 
may be eaten into or entirely scooped out by a small blue or green- 
ish beetle (fig. 27), meas- 
uring about one-fifth of 
an inch in length, of robust 
shape, with thick thighs, 
which jumps readily from 
the vines upon being dis- 
turbed. This is the grape 
flea-beetle. If the beetles 
are abundant, most of the 
buds on the vines may be 
destroyed, greatly retard- 
ing leafing out and result- 
ing in a material loss of 
fruit. The insect is spo- 
radic and more or less 
local in its occurrence in 
seriously destructive 
numbers, and these out- 
breaks are likely to sub- 
side as suddenly as they 
appear. 
The females deposit their 
eggs largely in cracks in 
the bark at base of buds, 
between bud scales, or even 
in the holes which have 
been eaten into the buds 
(fig. 28). The larvee hatch 
in a few days and feed on 
the leaves of the grape, 
mainly on the upper sur- 
face, and are thus read- 
ily destroyed with sprays 
(fig. 29). In three or four 
weeks, when the larve have attained full growth, they drop to the 
ground, construct an earthen cell an inch or so below the sur- 
face, and transform to pups, the adult beetles emerging in the course 
lig, 26.—The brown grape aphis on grape shoots. 
12 Haltica chalybea Illiger. 
