INSECTS AND OTHER ANIMAL PESTS INJURIOUS TO 
FIELD BEANS IN NEW YORK 
I. M. Haw.uery 
In June, 1917, a laboratory was established at Perry, in the bean-growing 
section of western New York, for an investigation of the diseases and the 
insects that had been causing much injury to field beans. In this work 
the Departments of Entomology, Plant Breeding, and Plant Pathology 
at Cornell University were each represented by one member. This investi- 
gation has been carried on for four years, and the results, on the whole, 
have been satisfactory. The entomological work, however, has been hin- 
dered by one unavoidable circumstance: in some summers the insect pests 
under investigation were very scarce, and field experiments for their control 
were thus impossible. As a result, the recommendations in some cases 
are based on fewer data than the writer had wished. 
The more important part of this investigation is the part concerning 
the seed-corn maggot (Hylemyia cilicrura Rond.). The field gray slug 
(Agriolimax agrestis L.), a mollusk of the family Limacidae, also has been 
studied in detail, and some attention has been given to the green clover 
worm (Plathypena scabra Fab.), the red-headed flea beetle (Systena frontalis 
Fab.), the pale-striped flea beetle (Systena taeniata Say), the blue-banded 
millepede, or thousand-legged worm (Julus caeruleocinctus Wood), and the 
bean weevil (Acanthoscelides obtectus Say). Observations were made also 
on the habits of some insects of lesser importance, in particular those that 
produce the pitting of the bean known as dimpling. 
THE SEED-CORN MAGGOT 
(Hylemyia cilicrura Rond.) 
It is difficult to obtain exact data concerning Hylemyia cilicrura,' for it 
is an erratic insect that may occur in a field in great numbers in one season, 
and not reappear in, or even near, that field the following year. The flies 
usually disappear in late summer and the hosts of the larvae during that 
part of the year are not definitely known. Reared flies apparently do not 
mate in captivity. Infestations of the insect in cultivated crops are not 
usually found until considerable damage has been caused. By that time 
the maggots are full-grown and it is too late for control experiments with 
that brood. The writer realizes the many gaps in the present work, but, 
as the insect is scarce at the present time, it seems desirable to record the 
results thus far obtained. 
. . . . U6 . . . 
1This species is more commonly known in American literature on economic entomology as Phorbia 
fusciceps Zett. 
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