To the detriment of our peas and to the
advantage of the beetle, the eggs are commonly laid one by one and in
isolation.
A recent emergence is shown by a little sinuous ribbon-like mark, pale
or whitish, where the skin of the pod is raised and withered, which
starts from the egg and is the work of the newborn larva; a
sub-epidermic tunnel along which the grub works its way, while seeking a
point from which it can escape into a pea. This point once attained, the
larva, which is scarcely a twenty-fifth of an inch in length, and is
white with a black head, perforates the envelope and plunges into the
capacious hollow of the pod.
It has reached the peas and crawls upon the nearest. I have observed it
with the magnifier. Having explored the green globe, its new world, it
begins to sink a well perpendicularly into the sphere. I have often seen
it halfway in, wriggling its tail in the effort to work the quicker. In
a short time the grub disappears and is at home. The point of entry,
minute, but always easily recognizable by its brown coloration on the
pale green background of the pea, has no fixed location; it may be at
almost any point on the surface of the pea, but an exception is usually
made of the lower half; that is, the hemisphere whose pole is formed by
the supporting stem.
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