704 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



THE COLOKADO POTATO-BEETLE. 



By Prof. C. V. EILEY. 



FEW insects have done more serious injury, or attracted greater 

 attention, than this, even in America, where insect depredations 

 attain a magnitude scarcely dreamed of in this country. Feeding 

 originally on the wild Solanumr ostratum in the Rocky Mountain 

 regions of Colorado and other Territories, it fell upon the cultivated 

 potato as soon as civilized man began to grow this esculent within its 

 reach. With large fields of palatable food, instead of scattered plants 

 of the wild Solanum^ to work upon, it multiplied at a marvelous rate, 

 and began to spread from its native home toward the East. Reaching 

 a point 100 miles west of Omaha, Nebraska, in 1859, its progress has 

 been carefully recorded each year since, until last year it reached the 

 Atlantic coast at a number of difierent points in Connecticut, New 

 Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. 

 The present year we hear of it being still more numerous on the At- 

 lantic coast, and of its swarming around New York City, and covering 

 the nets of fishermen. It has thus, in sixteen years, spread over 360 

 geographical miles, in a direct line ; and, if we consider the territory 



Fig. 1. Colorado Potato-Beetle. 

 a, o, etjEfs ; 6, 5, S, larvae of different sizes ; c, pupa ; d, d, beetle ; , left-winp: cover magiiifled to 

 show lines and punctures;/, leg enlarged. Colors: of egg, orange; of larvie, Venetian-red ; 

 of beetle, black and yellow. 



actually invaded, which includes the States of Kansas, Nebraska, 

 Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, 

 Michigan, Ohio, Ontario (Canada), New York, Vermont, Massachu- 

 setts, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, it has overrun an area 

 of 800,000 square miles. The natural history of the species was first 



