310 INSECT PESTS OF FARM,. GARDEN AND ORCHARD 



G. C. Davis for use against leafhoppers on celery in Michigan, 

 is shown in Fig. 260, and may be readily attached to the frame 

 of a wheel hoe. The string across the notch at A strikes the 

 plants and causes the hoppers to jump at the right time. By 

 adding high wide wings to either side of this machine it should 

 be well adapted for beets and similar crops. 



However, even the capture or killing of large numbers of the 

 leafhoppers by the means suggested will not, according to Dr. 

 Ball, solve the question of preventing the disease they carry, 

 since a single puncture will often kill a leaf. Some means for the 

 destruction of the hoppers before they reach the beet fields will 

 be necessary before the disease can be eliminated. The outlook 

 for certain beet-growing sections is, therefore, still serious. 



Blister-beetles * 



Among those insects attacking the young sugar-beets and 

 often doing considerable damage after they have become partly 

 grown, few are more widespread or do more general injury than 

 the blister-beetles. They have been especially destructive 

 in the northern Mississippi Valley, where they are usually worst 

 after a period of unusual abundance of grasshoppers. Coming 

 suddenly in a large swarm, they settle in a field and thoroughly 



I e 



FIG. 261. The striped blister-beetle (Epicauta vittata): a, female beetle; 

 b, eggs; c, triungulin larva; d, second or caraboid stage; e, same as / 

 doubled up as in pod; /, scarabaeoid stage; g, coarctate larva all except 

 e enlarged. (After Riley and Chittenden, U. S. Dept. Agr.) . 



riddle the foliage with holes or strip it bare before going to another 

 field. 



One of the most common forms is the striped blister-beetle, 

 or "old-fashioned potato-bug" (Epicauta vittata), which is 



* Family Melvidce. 



