164 



INJURIOUS INSECTS AND FUNGI. 



[Sept. 1895. 



I and la. Beetle ; natural size and magnified. 2. Larva, magnified. 3. Pea. 



The Pea beetle has been long known in this country. Kirby 

 and Spence, writing in 1815, speak of it as injuring peas in 

 England, and at the same time they say : " It is most alarm- 

 ingly destructive in North America, its ravages having been 

 at one time so universal as to put an end in some places to 

 the cultivation of peas." Cuttis says : The Bruchus which 

 abounds in fields and gardens in this country, if not originally 

 a native species, is at any rate perfectly naturalised, and the 

 importation of foreign peas and beans for seed is annually 

 increasing the numbers." 



The pea beetle, or " bug," is very common and destructive in the 

 United States, and, according to Professor Riley, "it is supposed 

 to be an indigenous North American insect, and to have been 

 first noticed many years ago around Philadelphia, from whence 

 it spread over most of the States where the pea is cultivated. 

 This supposition is probably the correct one, and it is certain 

 that, as the cultivated pea was introduced into this country from 

 abroad, our pea beetle must have fed on some other indigenous 

 plant of the pulse family. It is at present found in the more 

 southern parts of Europe, and it is one of the few injurious 

 insects which have found their way thither from this country." 

 In Canada, the pea beetle is even more prevalent and destruc- 

 tive than in the United States. It did such harm in 1880 in 

 Middlesex county, Canada, that pea-growers were advised to dis- 

 continue growing peas for a season or two. The seed peas 

 grown in Canada have so high a reputation among seedsmen 

 ill America and Europe that large quantities are sent to be 

 grown there. There is no doubt that the beetles are carried 

 into Canada in the peas to be grown for seed, and are exported 

 also with the seed peas from thence to various countries. 



Considerable quantities of seed peas are grown in the United 

 States, Canada, and New Zealand, for English seedsmen, as in 

 those countries the climate and weather conditions during the 

 ripening period and the harvest are more favourable for the 

 production and maturing of seed. These advantages, however, 

 are often counterbalanced by the large per-centage of the peas 



