Beetles 
281 
fruit and leaves; Crepidodera cucumeris, the cucumber flea-beetle, ^ inch 
long, and black, attacks melons, cucumbers, and other vegetables. The 
tortoise-beetles (Fig. 389) are curiously shaped, flat below, convex above, and 
with the prothorax and elytra thinly margined so as to give them a tortoise-like 
appearance from above; they are usually iridescent greenish and golden in color, 
and are often called goldbugs. The colors appear and disappear strangely 
while the insects are alive, but are always lacking in the dead specimen. 
Coptocycla clavata has two projections of the central dark color of each 
elytron looking like the four short broad legs of a tortoise; Cassida bicolor 
is like “a drop of burnished gold”; Chelymorpha argus , f inch long, brick- 
red with many black spots on prothorax and elytra, is found on milkweeds; 
Physonota unipunctala , J inch long, the largest of our tortoise-beetles, yellow 
with whitish margins, is common in midsummer on wild sunflowers. 
The small family Bruchidae contains two common and important beetles, 
viz., the pea-weevil, Bruchus pisi (Fig. 390), and the bean-weevil, B. 
obtectus (Fig. 391). The adult pea-weevil is j inch long, general color rusty 
or grayish black with a small white spot on the thorax. The eggs are small, 
fusiform, and yellow. The grubs on hatching bore through the pod into 
the peas. The hole made in the growing pea soon closes up, leaving 
the voracious larva within. Here it often comes to an untimely end, 
—which is uncomfortable to think about. If, however, the peas are 
allowed to ripen and are put away for seed, it eats on until there is 
Fig. 390. Fig. 391. 
Fig. 390. —The pea-weevil, Bruchus pisi, and an infested pea. (Natural size of beetle 
indicated by line:) 
Fig. 391. —The bean-weevil, Bruchus obtectus, and an infested bean. (Natural size 
of beetle indicated by line.) 
only a shell left of the pea. Weeviled peas are unfit for food, and, as 
proved by the experiments of Professor Popenoe, should not be used for 
seed. During the fall and winter the larvae pupate and finally mature as 
weevils (the adult beetles). Some of the beetles emerge from the peas, 
while others remain in them until they are planted. 
