PACKARD.) THE TURNIP FLEA-BEETLE. 745 



l)ut as the insect was yet quite pale and soft, conclude tbat it was not 

 more tlian a day or so out of the ground. The actual time, however, in 

 the pupa state, was less than seventeen days, for, like the larva of the 

 cucumber- beetle and other beetles, these worms pass a kind of inter- 

 mediate state, in a quiet, motionless condition, in their little dirt-tombs 

 beneath the ground. During this time they decrease in length very 

 mucli, becoming a shorter, thicker ' grub.' This period is a peculiar 

 part of the larval state, and may be called the quiescent, or 'shortening 

 period,' in contrast with the feeding period. At the end of this pre- 

 paratory shortening period, the little larva casts its skin and becomes a 

 pupa. 



" During the past summer I bred a good number of these beetles from 

 the larva and i)upa, taken from their breeding-places beneath the 

 ground ; but as I took no precise notes of the date, I can say no more 

 regarding the time of the pupa state, except that it is short, only a few 

 days. 



" Every gardener knows that these insects are very injurious to young 

 cabbages and turnips as soon as they appear above the ground, by eat- 

 ing off the seed-leaves ; he also almost universally imagines that when 

 the second or true plant leaves appear, then the young plant is safe from 

 their depredations, then the stem is so hard that the insect will not bite 

 it, and the leaves grow out so rapidly as not usually to be injured by 

 them ; but if we would gain much true knowledge of what is going on 

 around us, even among these most simple and common things, we must 

 learn to observe more closely than most men do. 



"The gardener sees his young cabbage-plants growing well for a time, 

 but at length they become pale or sickly, wither and die in some dry 

 period that usually occurs about that time, and attributes their death 

 to the dry weather; but if he will take the pains to examine the roots 

 of the plants, he will find tliem eaten away by some insect, and by 

 searching closely about the roots will find the larva, grub, worm, or 

 whatever else he may choose to call it 5 from this he can breed the striped 

 turnip-beetle, as I have often done. 



"I have observed the depredations of these larvae for ten years, and 

 most of that time had a convincing knowledge of their origin, but only 

 proved it in 1865; since that time I have made yearly verifications of 

 this fact. 



" Every year the young cabbage-plants and turnips in this region re- 

 ceive great damage from these larvjB, and often when we have dry 

 weather, in the latter part of May and early in June, the cabbage-plants 

 are ruined. A large proportion of the plants are killed outright in June, 

 and the balance rendered scarcely fit for planting; but when the ground 

 is wet to the surface all the time by frequent rains, the young plant is 

 able to defend itself much more effectually, by throwing out roots at 

 the surface of the ground, when the main or center root is devoured by 

 the larva; but in the dry weather these surface roots find no nourish- 

 ment and the plants must perish. 



" This year I saw these beetles most numerous in early spring, but 

 have often seen them in August and September so abundant on cab- 

 bages that the leaves were eaten full of holes and all speckled from 

 their presence, hundreds often being on a leaf, and at this time the 

 entire turnip-crop is sometimes destroyed by them, and seldom a year 

 passes without their doing great injury." 



These observation are not entirely in accordance with the teachings 

 of the masters in entomology. From Westwood's Introduction we learn 

 that the Chrysomelians feed on the leaves of plants; that some of them 

 attach themselves to the leaves to transform, and that others descend 



