18 THE SUGAE-BEET WIEEWOEM. 
LIFE HISTORY AND HABITS. 
The Egg. 
time and place of deposition. 
The eggs (PL II, fig. c) are all deposited during the spring and in ^ 
the greatest numbers about the middle or latter part of April. (See 
diagram, fig. 4.) During the latter part of March immature eggs '^ 
to the number of from 25 to 40 could be dissected from the swollen , 
abdomens of the females. 
On April 9 the first eggs were laid. These were placed in the / 
loose damp soil of the rearing cages, about 1^ inches below the^ 
i 
Fig. 3.— Injury by sugar-beet wirewonn {Liwonius californkus) to field of sweet corn, Dominguez, Cal. 
(Original.) 
surface. It seems that it is intended that the eggs shall always be ~ 
placed singly, as out of about 8,000 eggs taken from the soil only a ; 
very few cases were noticed where several eggs were together. Never-J 
were more than three eggs in a group, and these were not held together , 
in any way. 
Food plants seem to have no effect on the place of deposition, as 
there were always as many eggs found at the edges of the cage as ^ 
there were surrounding the young beet plant at the center. At first 
this was supposed to be due to the fact that the tender root hairs J 
are scattered rather generally through the soil, but later tests seemed 
to indicate that the place of deposition is affected more by the con- , 
