INSECTS AND OTHER ANIMAL Pests INyuRIOUS TO FieLp BEANS 100 1 
cabbage, potato, pea, tomato, pumpkin, melon, squash, cucumber, turnip, 
radish, carrot, eggplant, strawberry, blackberry, lettuce, sweet potato, 
summer savory, peanut, sunflower, oak, timothy, and oats. It 1s reported 
by Chittenden (1900) and other writers as occurring also on the following 
weeds: ragweed, lamb’s-quarters, pigweed, Jamestown weed, cocklebur, 
black, or garden, nightshade, purslane, fleabane, sand bur, and other plants. 
The writer has found it on mustard and daisy. 
Every time that S. taenzata has been found on beans in New York, some 
of its common weed hosts have been near by. Ragweed and lamb’s- 
- quarters appear to be its favorite food plants. 
DESCRIPTION OF STAGES 
The egg 
The egg of Systena taeniata (Plate LXX, 3) is elliptical, slightly more 
rounded at one end, is pale yellow n color, and has a roughened surface. 
Under the high power of the microscope, the egg covering is seen to be 
divided into a definite pattern of depressed hexagonal areas, with irregular 
reticulations in the hexagons. Under a lens it appears faintly roughened. 
Its length is from 0.6 to 0.65 millimeter. 
The larva 
The larva (Plate LXIX, 8) is described by Forbes (1894) as follows: 
Length 5 mm.,.greatest width about .6 mm. Slender, widening gradually to the 11th 
segment, thence tapering quite rapidly. General color pale yellow or brownish yellow, 
paler towards the posterior end. Head yellowish brown, with numerous stiff hairs; jaws 
darker brown. . Antennae three-jointed, pale, short, and thick. The thorax and abdomen 
are darkest on the dorsum, fading to paler on the margins and ventral surface, and the latter 
very pale yellowish at the end. The first thoracic segment has two longitudinal curved 
impressed lines on the dorsum; segments two and three have longitudinal impressed lines 
on each side near the border, between which is a transverse curved line crossing each segment 
near its anterior margin, from which two oblique straight lines extend to the posterior margins 
of the segments. The legs have stout, blunt, spine-like processes on their anterior surfaces, 
and stiff hairs on the posterior. The abdominal segments are transversely wrinkled on both 
anterior and posterior margins. The skin is shagreened, and the whole body is supplied 
with stiff, spine-like hairs of various lengths. The anal segment has a single fleshy proleg. 
When seen from above this segment rapidly narrows to midway its length, the posterior half 
forming a rounded, lobe-like projection of about one half the width of the anterior portion 
of the segment. On the projection are four long, stiff, spine-like hairs and a marginal crown 
of shorter spine-like processes, each of which ends in a fine, curved, hair-like lash. (De- 
scribed from two specimens.) 
The pupa 
The pupa (Plate LXIX, 9) is pale yellow in color until just before the 
emergence of the adult beetle, when the darker body markings may be 
seen thru the pupal skin. The end of the body bears two heavy, promi- 
nent, slightly incurving spines. The length is about 4 millimeters. 
