40 



lifJURIOUS li^SECTS 



together, mostly on the under side of the leaf, and gener- 

 ally from eleven to twelve in number. In about six days 

 in April — four days in July — there hatches out from these 

 eggs a brood of larvas (fig, 26, a,) resembling the perfect 

 insect, but has no wings. Tliis brood immediately be- 

 gins the work of destruction by piercing and sucking the 

 Hfe-sap from the leaves; and in twelve days they have 

 matured. They are timid, and will run off and hide be- 

 hind the first leaf-stem, or any part of the plant that 

 will answer the purpose. The leaf that they puncture 

 immediately wilts. Half a dozen grown insects will kill 

 a cabbage in a day. They continue through the sum- 

 mer, and sufficient perfect insects survive the winter to 

 insure a full crop of them for the coming season. 



" This tribe of insects do not seem liable to the attacks 

 of any of the cannibal races, either in the egg state or any 

 other stage. Our birds pay no attention to them, neither 

 will the domestic fowls touch them. I have, as yet, 

 found no way to get clear of them, but to pick them off 

 by hand." 



It appears from this statement that there are at least 

 two broods of the species every year, the first hatching 

 out in April and the second in July; and as it is said 

 that only sixteen or eighteen days elapse from the deposi- 

 tion of the egg to the mature development of the perfect 

 bug, it is not improbable that the species is in reality 

 many-brooded. The eggs, of which we have specimens 

 now before us, are about 0.03 inch in diameter, barrel- 

 shaped, and of a green ish-v/hite color with two broad 

 black bands encircling the staves of the barrel so as to 

 look exactly like hoops. To afford a passage to the young 

 larva, one of the heads of the barrel — the one, of course, 

 that is not glued to the surface of the leaf — is detached 

 by the beak of the little stranger as neatly and as 

 smoothly as if a skillful cooper had been at work on it 

 with his hammer and driver. And yet, instead of 



