Potato Insects and their Control 177 



edge of the thorax give them some resemblance to a 

 tortoise shell. They are of small size and green, gold or 

 black in color. 



The adults make their appearance in May, having lived 

 through the winter in crevices under bark and in similar 

 dry places wherever shelter could be found. The female 

 begins to lay eggs soon after her appearance. The eggs 

 are laid singly on the leaf-stems or on the under side along 

 the larger veins, and each is covered with a little daub of 

 black excrement, so that all that is visible to the eye is a 

 little mass of black, pasty material that soon hardens. 

 This mass incloses the whitish oval egg and protects it. 

 During the first part of June, many of the eggs have 

 hatched and larvae, eggs and adults may be found on the 

 plants all at once. "The larvae are decidedly flattened, 

 more or less oval, with lateral spines or processes from the 

 margins, and at the end of the body is a fork which, in 

 some species, holds all the excrement voided during life 

 and sometimes the cast skins as well, often making a mass 

 nearly as large as the larvae itself." These feed, pref- 

 erably, on the under surface of the leaves and do much 

 damage. The larva pupates about the middle of July. 

 The beetles appear during early August and feed very little, 

 all trace being gone before the beginning of September. 

 There is one brood a year. 



The potato plant-loiise {Macrosiphum solanifolii) 



This plant-louse is relatively large in size, and either pink 

 or green in color. Its mouth-parts, like those of all plant- 

 lice, are adapted for sucking the juices from the tender, 

 growing tips of the vines. The infested vines grow brown 

 at the ends and often die back for four or five inches. In 



