EEMEDIE8 FOR FLEA-BEETLES 
P.V CLARENCE M. WEED 
» 
Duriug recent years great annoyance has been caused many 
farmers and gardeners- in Nen* England on account of the 
injuries due to small jumping insects that appear in spring upon 
a great variety of youn"- crop plants, eating out small circular 
portions of its leaves. These insects are called flea-beetles, 
because of their habit of jumping when disturbed. The most 
abundant spocies is the so-called Cucumber Flea-beetle* — a 
small, black, hard-shelled insect scarcely one-twelfth of an inch 
long. Its common name is hardly an appropriate one, for it 
seems no more partial to plants of the cucumber family 
than to many others. It commonly attacks with destructive 
effect potatoes, tomatoes, egg-plant, radish, turnip, cabbage, 
raspberry, sunflower and other plants, as well as the various 
members of the squash family. It feeds almost exclusively 
upon thick leaved plants, and is more likely to attack the 
relatively thick cot3dedons or first leaves than those appearing 
later. This is easily explained by its habit of gnawing the 
surface of the leaf; when the parenchyma or green partis thick 
and succulent more food is available than when the leaf is 
thin. 
Apparently' the life-history of this insect has not as yet been 
very completely worked out. So far as now known the essential 
facts may be briefly summarized thus : The beetles deposit eggs, 
presumably upon the leaves of the food plants, which hatch into 
little grubs that become leaf-miners — living within the tissues 
of the leaves. Probably they drop to the ground to change to 
the pupa state, emerging shortly afterwards as adult beetles 
again. In New England there are evidently two broods of 
beetles each season, one appearing early in Spring and the other 
a little after midsummer. Tiie first brood attacks early vege- 
tables most severely, while the presence of the second is most 
likely to be shown by injuries in the potato field. The most 
serious losses are undoubtedly caused by the attacks upon pota- 
toes. 
* Crepidodera cucumeris. 
