PACKAUD.J TUE SQUASH-BORER. 769 



to bo fjatbered for the table, that the ravages of tbe insects leads to 

 their discovery. A large proportion of the pods will then be found to 

 be rough, and covered with little dark-colored dots or scars, and many 

 of them seem to be unusually spongy and not well filled. On opening 

 these spongy pods we find that the beans have not grown to their proper 

 size, and if they are left on the plant they cease to enlarge. At the 

 same time the leaves, pods, and stalks are more or less infested with 

 little leaf-hoppers, not fully grown, and unprovided with wings. Usually 

 between the end of July and the middle of August the insects come to 

 their growth and acquire their wings ; but the mischief at this time is 

 finished, and the plants have sulfered so much that all prospect of a 

 second crop of beans from new shoots, produced after the old stems are 

 cut down, is frustrated. 



These leaf-hoppers have the same agility in their motions, and appar- 

 ently the same habits, as the vine-hoppers ; but in the perfect state they 

 are longer, more slender, and much more delicate. They are of a pale- 

 green color; the wing-covers and wings are transparent and colorless; 

 and the last joint of the hind feet is bluish. The head, as seen from 

 above, is crescent-shaped, and the two eyelets are situated on its front 

 edge. The male has two long recurved feathery threads at the extremity 

 of the body. The length of this species is rather more than one-tenth, 

 but less than three-twentieths of an inch wide. It may be called Tetti- 

 (joniafahw. Probably it passes the winter in the same way as the vine- 

 hopper. 



INSECTS INJURING THE SQUASH AND PUMPKIN. 



The Squash-Borer, J^f/eria (Mdlttia) CHCurbitcr Harris (Fij?. 36).— Often suddenly 

 killing the vine ; a borer iu tbe stalk, short and 

 thick, with a dark head and a dark horny patch just 



■behind it ; changing to a beautiful narrow-winged, (i- a^ fc ^ \*^V^ ^^^10 /® 

 orange-colored moth spotted with black. 



During the last of summer when the vines 

 are nearly fully grown and the squashes have 

 nearly attained their full size, they suddenly 

 die as if cut off at the roots. This is the work 

 of the caterpillar of the beautiful moth here I'lG.SG.-Squasb -Borer; a, grub, 

 figured. This jEgerian appears iu New England from July 10 to Au- 

 gust 15, when it deposits its eggs on the stalk of the vine close to the 

 roots. The larva on hatching bores into the stalk, and when nearly 

 grown occupies the center near the ground, devouring the interior, 

 and thus killing the plant. Here it lives until the last of Septem- 

 ber or early in October, when it either deserts the vine and spins a 

 rude earthen cocoon near the roots, or, as is often the case, remains 

 in the hollow it has made in the stalk, and then changes to a chrysalis. 

 From this fact the means of prevention against its attacks are com- 

 paratively easy, for if the vines are collected and burned in the autumn, 

 iu many cases the worms or chrysalides will be destroyed with. them. 



Description. — The larva is a short, thick, fleshy, white caterpillar, with short legs, 

 and a dusky head, with a horny dark scale on the segment next behind it. The 

 moth is exceedingly beautiful, being a member of the t'umily of ^geriatts, iu which 

 the wiugs are very narrow. The liody, for one of this family, is unusually thick. It 

 is dark green with a bluish tint. The antenna} are steel-blue. In the male the 

 antennae are pectinated, and the abdomen dark above. Iu the female the abdomen 

 is orange-red above and beneath, except on the basal segment; on the upper side are 

 five large dark spots. The legs in both sexes are thick, with dense stiff hairs, black 

 and orange, forming brushes, some white hairs, and four stift" spines; a large white 

 spot at the base of the hind legs and on the breast. Head iu front white; palpi, 

 orange. It expands nearly an inch and a half. 



49 G S 



