t 
by very short pedicels, and covered with short white pubescence; 
occiput and front black; palpi and proboscis dusky yellow. 
Thorax black and moderately shining; pleurae brownish black; 
lialteres pale yellowish; legs yellow, with black hairs; coxae with 
golden hairs; femora with black spot on the under side at base, 
tips of tibiae and tarsi dusky, hinder tarsi almost black; middle 
and hind tibiae with yellow spurs at tip; wings hyaline, veins 
brownish yellow, branches of fork almost equally curved. Ab¬ 
domen dusky blackish, paler on ventral surface. Ovipositor 
dusky, with two pale yellowish lamellae at tip. 
Described from alcoholic specimens. 
4. Injuries by six-legged larvae which gnaw or bore through 
the kernel . 
The six-legged insect larvae which infest corn in the earth are 
of very unequal importance, the so-called wireworms being found 
more injurious to seed corn than all other insects taken to¬ 
gether, the larva of the banded Ips being only occasionally re¬ 
ported to infest corn in the earth, and the other—that of the pale- 
striped flea-beetle—having been seen but once in this situation. 
Probably ninety-nine per cent, of the six-legged kernel-eating 
insect larvae will be found to be wireworms of one or another 
species; and the greater part of these will usually belong, in 
Illinois at least, to a single species ( Melanotus cribulosus ), 
which may well be called the corn wire worm. 
Pale-striped Flea-beetle. 
(Systena tseniata , Say.) 
Plate III., Fig. 8; and Plate IV., Fig. 1 and 2. 
The larva of the pale-striped flea-beetle is a stiff, sluggish 
insect, slender and small, less than a fourth of an inch in length 
and about one eighth as wide, dull, of a very pale yellowish 
color, minutely roughened and hairy, the segments with a regu¬ 
lar geometrical pattern of longitudinal depressed lines. It is also 
distinguished by its peculiar form, which narrows noticeably 
from behind forward, the head being very small. 
In the only case in which it was found infesting growing corn 
(Champaign, May 17, 1886)* the larva had partly buried itself 
in the kernel beside the sprout. This and other of the species 
found among the roots were bred to the beetle stage on sprout¬ 
ing corn, pupating May 26 to June 7 and emerging as adults 
on the 17th of June. The great abundance of this insect in 
the beetle stage—so common as often to keep the leaves of 
the cockle-bur peppered with small holes where these beetles 
have fed—makes even so slight a hint of its capacity for mis- 
* "Canadian Entomologist,” 1880, Vol. 18, p. 177; “Entomologica Americana,” Dec., 1886, 
Vol. II., p. 174. 
