The White Geub of the May Beetle. 11 



Injueies by the Beetle. 



Many of our insect pests are injurious only in their larval .stage, 

 except through the evil that they originate in the deposit of their 

 eggs. Of this class are all of the extensive order of Lepidoptera, 

 embracing the butterflies and moths, which, in their winged stage, 

 are unprovided with jaws for biting. Their slender and flexible 

 tubular proboscis, fitted only for imbibing liquids, can not be used 

 for any serious harm — in this particular, unlike the rigid, stouter 

 proboscis of the Hemiptera or bugs, which is capable of inflicting 

 serious and varied injuries. The powerful jaws with which many 

 of the Coleoptera, or beetles, are armed, are often fitted for, and 

 employed as, formidable instruments of offense. The May-beetle 

 while, from the character of its food and a life-period of short dura- 

 tion, it is less injurious than its insatiate and long-lived grub, is 

 still chargeable, as a leaf-eater, with extensive depredations at times 

 upon many of our fruit, forest, and shade trees. Dr. Fitch has 

 written of them as " gathering by night upon the trees and eating 

 the leaves, sometimes in such numbers as to wholly strip the 

 foliage from the choice varieties." Prof. Riley states: "I have 

 known the Lombardy poplar to die, in consequence of the utter 

 denudation they caused ; while groves of both pin and post oaks 

 iQuercus palustris and Q. obtusiloba] * * * were thoroughly 

 and suddenly denuded by them " (First Report Ins. Mo., p. 157). 



Of the fruit trees, the cherry and plum appear to be preferred. 

 It was thought by Mr. Walsh that their swarming upon these trees, 

 as they occasionally do, was not usual, except in the eastern States, 

 as he had not known it to occur in the valley of the Mississippi 

 (Practical Entomologist, i, 1866, p. 62). But that they are, at times, 

 quite as abundant in that region appears from the record, that in 

 Cameron, Missouri, " they swarmed during the last of May, 1866, 

 making a noise on the trees like the coming up of a storm of wind 

 and rain " (American Entomologist, i, 1868, p. 37). Among other 

 trees, the beetle is recorded as feeding upon the oak, the maple, and 

 the beech. 



Mr. W. L. Devereaux, of Wayne Co., N. Y., writing in 1886, 

 states: " The May-beetle is very abundant in this county this year, 

 and it has completely stripped the foliage from most of the late 

 infoliating trees like the species of walnut, ash, and oak (The Hus- 

 bandman for June 23). 



