INSECTS IXJrRIOUS TO TOBACCO. 



229 



The Tobacco Flea-beetle (EpUrix parvula Fab.). 



The Tobacco Flea -beetle is one of 

 the insects which has become in- 

 creasingly injurious upon tobacco- 

 leaves in recent years. So far as 

 recorded its injuries have been no- 

 ticed only in the northern part of 

 the tobacco-belt, viz., Kentucky, 

 Ohio, West Virginia, Marjdand, and 

 Connecticut. The leaves are dam- 

 aged by having small holes eaten in 

 the upper or nnder surfaces, or some- 

 times clear through them. When 

 badly eaten the leaves appear as if 

 peppered with shot, the injury being 

 esj)ecially severe to young plants. 

 The adult beetles which do this in- 

 jury are very small, hardly more 

 than one-twentieth of an inch long, 

 of a light brown color, with a dark 

 band across the wing-covers. A few 

 of them could do but little injury, 

 but they soon increase nntil they 

 swarm over the leaves and injure them 

 badly. The life-history of this sj)ecies 

 has not been studied until recently 

 and is not yet well known. Mr. F. 

 H. Chittenden has ascertained that 

 the larvae feed habitually uj^on the 

 roots of the common Nightshade and 

 Jamestown weed. These are undoubtedly the usual food 



Fig. 128. — Work of 

 Split-worm — reduced. 

 (After Howard, U. S. 

 Dept. Agr. ) 



