38 



mJUEIOUS INSECTS 



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

 attacked by several species of Flea-beetles. By these 

 jumping 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 G-rub, 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 trassicce) — 

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

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

 hrassicce) — and the leaves themselves are riddled full of 

 holes by the tiny larva of the Cabbage Tinea {Plutella 

 cruciferarum), or devoured bodily by the large fleshy 

 larvae 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 {StracMa Mstrionica, 

 Hahn, fig. 26, cl, 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. G-ideon Lincecum, of Washington 



