
THE WAVY-STRIPED FLEA-BEETLE. 515 
number of the larvee into a breeding-box with a supply of 
their natural food. June 17th, some of the larve had disap- 
peared beneath the ground. July 4th, I found in the box 
the beetle. This gives us seventeen days from the time the 
larva entered the ground, having ceased eating, until I ob- 
tained the perfect insect. I did not open the breeding-box 
every day, but as the insect was yet quite pale and soft, 
conclude that it was not more than a day or so out of the 
ground. The actual time, however, in the pupa state, was 
less than seventeen days, for, like the larva of the Cucumber- 
beetle and other beetles, these worms pass a kind of inter- 
mediate state, in a quiet, motionless condition, in their lit- 
tle dirt-tombs beneath the ground. During this time they 
decrease in length very much, becoming a shorter, thicker 
“grub.” This period is a peculiar part of the larval state, 
and may be called the quiescent, or “shortening period,” in 
contrast with the feeding period. At the end of this prepar- 
atory, shortening period, the little larva casts its skin and 
becomes a pupa. 
During the past summer I bred a good number of these 
beetles from the larva and pupa, taken from their breeding 
Places beneath the ground; but as I took no precise notes of 
the date, I can say no more regarding the time of the pupa 
State, except that it is short, only a few days. 
Every gardener knows that these insects are very injurious 
to young cabbages and turnips as soon as they appear above 
ground, by eating off the seed-leaves ; he also almost uni- 
Yersally imagines that when the second, or true plant-leaves 
“Ppear, then the young plant is safe from their depreda- 
tions, then the stem is so hard that the insect will not bite 
it, and the leaves grow out so rapidly as not usually to be 
mjured by them ; but if we would gain much true knowledge 
s what is going on around us, even among these most sim- 
Ple and common things, we must learn to observe more 
closely than most men do. 
_ “He gardener sees his young cabbage plants growing well 

