72 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO GARDEN AND ORCHARD CROPS. 



hatched in the fall. Otherwise the grubs must develop very rapidly after hatching 

 from eggs laid in the spring. There seems to be one brood of the insect in the course 

 of a year. 



All of this is true except the surmise in regard to the eggs being laid 

 and hatched in the fall. Egg-laying probably begins as early as the first 

 of May, and perhaps earlier, which will account for the larvae being 

 observed so well developed in June. The period of egg -laying is, of 

 course, variable. Eggs that were laid June 2 hatched on the 13th, or 

 in eleven days. 



From larvae that hatched from the egg during the third week of June 

 a pupa was obtained which would have transformed to beetle about 

 September 8. The period of the larvae under observation was between 

 eight and nine weeks from hatching to transformation to pupa, and 

 the pupa stage, according to Mr. Slingeiiand's observations, is about 

 sixteen days; larvae that transformed to pupae July 28, he says, issued 

 as beetles August 13. These figures would give a period of the life 

 cycle from the deposition of the egg to the maturity of the beetle of 

 about twelve weeks. 



Experience shows that the beetles normally, if not always, leave their 

 pupal cells in the fall to feed, and that the species hibernates in the 

 adult condition. 



FOOD HABITS OF THE BEETLE. 



Although this species is not injurious in its larval state, it is quite 

 the contrary with the adult, but even here injury is probably often 

 very much exaggerated, as the mouth parts of the beetle, as well as 

 those of other species of the same group of Scarabaeidae, the Cetoniini, 

 are formed rather for sipping or lapping of vegetable juices than for 

 boring or chewing. The beetles feed indifferently upon the sap which 

 exudes from wounds in trees and upon the juices of over-ripe or injured 

 fruits or other succulent vegetable growth and upon pollen. Their 

 active life as beetles is comparatively short in the fall of the year. 

 They appear toward the end of August and the first of September, the 

 date of appearance varying with locality; but in a short time, a matter 

 of about two or three weeks, they cease feeding and enter the earth for 

 hibernation. 



Owing to the large size of the beetles and their habits of congre- 

 gating in immense numbers they are often the occasion of considerable 

 alarm, and very frequent complaints of injury are received and are 

 recorded of them. More often it is apprehension of danger rather than 

 the actual injury which induces the fruit grower or farmer to write for 

 information as to the probabilities of damage. 



The beetles have an especial fondness for the ears of ripening corn, 

 particularly sweet corn, and are often accused of boring into the husk 

 to get at the kernels within. Peaches and apples are very subject to 

 attack, and persimmons, tomatoes, and cotton bolls have been reported 

 as being injured. 



