oe ie) 
rower than those succeeding them. It is marked with neither hairs nor _ 
punctures, and provided with no locomotor structures whatever. — 
Pupa—tLength 3.6 mm.; greatest width, one third the length. In | 
general color the pupa is yellowish white, the yellow predominating on 
the head and thorax. The eyes are black; antenne tinged with brown, 
which is darkest towards the base; the front has two rather large prom- 
inent brownish tubercles or projections, one on each side of the median 
line, just above the base of the antenne. A brownish bristle arises 
from each of the tubercles. Prothorax and anterior margins of the wing 
pads tinged with brown. The anterior stigmata are on the sides of the 
thorax, over the eyes, the antenne intervening in a broad transparent 
tubercle which contains in the center an oblong elevation with four 
elongate transverse black spots. Dorsum of thorax and abdomen with 
microscopically minute brown points. he penultimate segment has a 
lateral plication on each side, and the last segment is bilobed beneath, 
with a pair of conical prolongations, thickly beset with scabrous points, 
extending backward from each side. 
Female.—Length 3 mm. exclusive of ovipositor, which is about .6 
mm. in length. General color blackish. The head is black; antenne 
brownish black, with sixteen cylindrical joints united by very short 
pedicels, and covered with short white pubescence; occiput and front 
black; palpi and proboscis dusky yellow. Thorax black and moderately 
shining; pleure brownish black; halteres pale yellowish; legs yellow, 
with black hairs; coxe with golden hairs; femora with black spot on 
the under side at base, tips of tibie and tarsi dusky, hinder tarsi almost 
black; middle and hind tibie with yellow spurs at tip; wings hyaline, 
yeins brownish yellow, branches of fork almost equally curved. Abdo- 
men dusky blackish, paler on ventral surface. Ovipositor dusky, with 
two pale yellowish lamella at tip. 
Described from alcoholic specimens. 
4. Injuries by sia-legged larvae which gnaw or bore 
through the kernel. 
The six-legged insect larvae which infest corn in the earth are of 
very unequal importance, the so-called wireworms being found more 
injurious to seed corn than all other insects taken together, the larva 
of the banded Ips being only occasionally reported to infest corn in the 
earth, and the other—that of the pale-striped flea-beetle—having been 
seen but once in this situation. Probably ninety-nine per cent. of the 
six-legged kernel-eating insect larve will be found to be wireworms of 
one or another species; and the greater part of these- will usualiy be- 
long, in Illinois at least, to a single species (Melanotus cribulosus), 
which may well be called the corn wireworm. 
PALE-STRIPED FLEA-BEETLE. 
(Systena teniata, Say.) 
(Plate III., Fig. 8; and Plate IV., Fig. 1 and 2:) 
The larva of the pale-striped flea-beetle is a stiff, sluggish insect, 
slender and small, less than a fourth of an inch,in length and about one 
eighth as wide, dull, of a very pale yellowish color, minutely roughened 
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