38 IlfJUEIOUS INSECTS 



bages above ground in the seed-bed, than they are often 

 attacked by several species of Plea-beetles. By these 

 jumjnng little pests the seed-leaves are frequently rid- 

 dled so full of holes that the life of the plant is destroyed; 

 and they do not confine themselves to the seed-leaves, 

 but prey to a considerable extent also upon the young 

 rough leaves. After the plants are set out, the larva of 

 the very same insect is found upon the roots, in the form 

 of a tiny elongate six-legged worm. Through the oper- 

 ations of this subterranean foe, the young cabbages, es- 

 pecially in hot dry weather, often wither away and die; 

 and even if they escape this infliction, there is a whole 

 host of cutworms ready to destroy them with a few snaps 

 of their powerful jaws; and the common White Grub, as 

 we know by experience, will often do the very same thing. 

 Suppose the unfortunate vegetable escapes all these 

 dangers of the earlier period of its existence. At a more 

 advanced stage in its life, the stem is burrowed into by 

 the maggot of the Cabbage Fly {Anthomyia Irassiccn) — 

 the sap is pumped out of the leaves in streams by myriads 

 of minute Plant-lice covered with a whitish dust {Aphis 

 irassicm) — and the leaves themselves are riddled full of 

 holes by the tiny larva of the Cabbage Tinea (PluteUa 

 cruciferancm), or devoured bodily by the large fleshy 

 larvffl of several different Owlet-moths. 



Severe as are these inflictions upon the Northern cab- 

 bage-grower, there is an insect found in the Southern 

 States that appears to be, if possible, still worse. This 

 is the Harlequin Cabbage-bug {Strachia liistrionica, 

 Ilahn, fig. 20, d, which is enlarged, the line showing the 

 real size), so called from the gay theatrical Harle- 

 quin-like manner in which the black and yellow colors 

 are arranged upon its body. The first account of the op- 

 erations of this very pretty but unfortunately very mis- 

 chievous bug appeared in the year 1866 from the able 

 pen of the late Dr. Gideon Lincecum, of Washington 



