172 MAINE STATE COLLEGE 



translucent places where the coatiDg of the bean had been made 

 thin by the beetles indicating their location within. The inside 

 of some of the beans was completely eaten and only the powdery 

 excreta remaining. We wish to add our testimony to that of 

 Popenoe, Schwartz and Lintner that successive generations of this 

 insect occur in stored beans, and also that if the food supply does 

 not become exhausted they may survive into the second season. 

 They will eat cotyledons, radicle and plumule. Several specimens 

 showed the cotyledons entirely detach from the radicle and it 

 intact. We believe the radicle is rejected not because it is less 

 desirable for food but on account of it being small and nearly 

 isolated from the bean mass. We found one specimen with the 

 cotyledons nearly intact and the radicle eaten, its place being 

 occupied by a well fed larva. In some specimens nothing remained 

 excepting the seed coats filled with powdery excreta. 



It has not been clearly shown that the beetles will not fly or 

 crawl to new lots of stored beans and infest them. 



Or in other words it is not known whether beans may become 

 infested after they are stored by the beetles laying their eggs upon 

 them. The general belief is that the beetles confine their attacks 

 to the lot of beans infested and that they spread during the summer 

 through the agency of eggs laid on the growing pods. 



Prof. Lintner has shown that the beetles will lay their eggs upon 

 dry beans and that in the infested lot that the young larvae will 

 gnaw into them and perfect themselves. 



The fact that a part of the lot of beans which Mr. Libby took to 

 his store was not infested when shelled the next spring would lead 

 one to suspect that the others may have been infested by beetles 

 getting into them after they were stored. The holes in the pods 

 may have been made for the entrance of beetles as well as for their 

 exit. The holes being in the pods shows that the beetles as well 

 as the larvse have adequate gnawing powers. The only thing that 

 would prevent infection this way would be the sluggish habits of 

 the beetles. Those we had in a warm room in January were quite 

 active. They did not fly but crawled rapidly. Prof. Lintner's 

 observations show clearly that they may spread from the beans 

 originally infested in a lot to the others stored with them. It is 

 also important to know whether the beetles that mature at all sea- 

 sons of the year may not fly to new lots of stored beans and infest 

 them. 



