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SCHOOL ENTOMOLOGY 



eggs in crevices of the soil. During a month a female will 

 lay 100 eggs, which hatch in a week to ten days. The larva 

 is a slender, white, worm-like grub about three-tenths of an 

 inch long, with a dark head and anal plate. They bore 

 into the cucurb roots, often tunneling into the base of the 

 stem, and sometimes mine into melons lying on damp soil. 

 Injury to the roots is rarely very serious, though occasionally 

 cucumber and melon vines are killed. The larvae become 



FIG. 201. The striped cucumber beetle (Diabrotica vittata Fab.). 

 (After Chittenden, U. S. Dept. Agr.) 

 o, beetle; 6, larva; c, pupa; much enlarged. 



full grown in about a month, when they transform to pupae 

 in small, earthen cells, from which the beetles emerge in one 

 to two weeks. In New England there is but one generation 

 a year, the new beetles appearing in early fall, but in the 

 Middle States there are two generations, the first appearing 

 about midsummer. 



A few plants may be protected from the beetles by covers 

 of netting. A barrel hoop cut in two and crossed and the 

 ends fastened to another hoop makes a good frame. Cone- 

 shaped covers of wire screening may be made and kept from 



