STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
665 
ASPARAGUS BEETLE. THE LARVA. ITS HABITS. 
which are no thicker than a coarse bristle—situations where they will be 
least liable to be disturbed by the beetles or larvae in feeding. They are 
d so firmly that the end appears as though it were 
embedded in the leaf. They thus stand erect, 
in a row, about as far distant from each other 
as their lengths, each row containing about five 
eggs, but the number varying in' different in¬ 
stances from two to six or seven. Mr. Westwood, 
whose figures of this insect we have copied in 
the above cut (Modern Classification of Insects, . 
vol. i, p. 372, fig. 16 and 18) represents two of 
Asparagus Beetle, its Eggs and these eggs, placed, one elevated upon the top of 
Larva ' the other. His figuring them thus, is an ample 
assurance of the fact that they do sometimes occur, placed in this manner. 
But it must be exceedingly rare. Mr. Youngs informs me, that since seeing 
this figure, he has looked particularly to find an instance of this kind, but 
without success. 
The eggs hatch in eight days, and the larva (represented in the cut, when 
young at d, when full grown at e and magnified at /) is from ten to twelve 
days in getting its growth. It attains a length of about a quarter of an inch. 
It is of an obscure olive or dull ash gray color, often with a blackish stripe 
along the middle of the back. It is soft and of a flesh;like consistency, about 
three times as long as thick, thickest back of the middle, with the body much 
wrinkled transversely. The head is black and shining, and the neck, which 
is Ihicker than the head, has two shining black spots above. Three pairs of 
legs are placed anteriorly, upon the breast, and are of the same shining black 
color with the head. As will be seen when it is crawling, the larva clings 
also with the tip end of its body ; and all along its under side may then be 
Been two rows of small tubercles, slightly projecting from the surface, which 
serve as pro-legs in addition to the tip of its body. Above these tubercles on 
each side is a row of elevated shining dots like warts, above which the breath¬ 
ing pores appear like a row of minute black dots. 
Like the perfect insect, the larva feeds upon the asparagus only, eating 
holes through the outer bark of the plant, and preferring the tender bark on 
the ends of the stalks and on the branches, to the more tough and stringy 
hark towards the base of the stem. It moves very slowly, and is shy and 
timorous. As you approach it, it stops eating and holding its head stiffly 
hack it emits a drop of black fluid from its mouth. This appears to be its 
only defence against being devoured by birds and other predaceous animals, 
the acrid taste of this fluid probably rendering the larva unpalatable to them. 
It also clings tenaciously to the asparagus. Before tying the cuttings up in 
bunches for the market, they are thoroughly washed, by being held usually 
under a pump ; but these worms cling so tightly that only a part of them are 
washed off, and this black fluid from their mouths stains and nasties the hands 
cf the men, in bunching the cuttings, it being as sticky as molasses. 
When they were done feeding, the three larva: which came under my obser¬ 
vation in June, left the plants. I therefore inferred that they entered the 
