Florida Agricultural Experiment Station


can be collected by hand as recommended for the pumpkin bug.
 PUMPKIN BUG (Nezara viridula)
 This pest attacks nearly all garden plants and especially
legumes, but is particularly at home on cowpeas. The adult
insects are little more than 1/2 inch long and nearly as broad
and are usually light green in color. The young (fig. 87) are
bluish with some reddish markings. They are quite unlike the
adults in appearance. There are several generations in a year.
The adults of the last generation hibernate but not until late in




















 FIG. 87.-Pumpkin bug (Nezara viridula): Young. Six
 times natural size. (From U. S. Bur. of Ent.)

the fall and are out early in the spring. These insects do con-
siderable damage to young plants but the most severe injury is
inflicted on the pods. Their numerous feeding punctures make
unsightly brown tough dots. They will also dwarf the pods
and if sufficiently numerous cause them to drop.
 Control.-This is a difficult pest to control. Being a suck-
ing insect, arsenicals or other stomach poisons are of no avail.
The young can be killed by kerosene emulsion or a strong soap
solution, but the adults are too robust to be killed by these com-
pounds except at strengths that would be dangerous to the
plants. The only means of combating them seems to be hand-
collecting. On an ordinary field crop of cowpeas, it is ques-
tionable whether the operation would pay. It is perhaps best