286 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



the former, however, than the latter. Now, so far as I could 

 then or can yet discern, there are but two ways that this insect 

 could have been introduced into Ohio : first, by the hibernating 

 adults being shipped in with plants, and, second, by being washed 

 into some of the tributaries of the Ohio river, which we know 

 intermingle with those of the Genesee, Susquehanna, and Poto 

 mac rivers. As I have before stated, the edible part of the plant 

 comes from the south exclusively, and where the roots are 

 shipped for transplanting they are removed either late in the fall 

 or early in the spring, before the young shoots are put out, which 

 would preclude transporting anything but the hibernating adults. 

 If the introduction was by this means, there would be, it seems 

 to me, a far greater likelihood of its becoming established in a 

 section of country where the most asparagus was grown, instead 

 of where the reverse was the case. Even if it were introduced 

 about Cleveland first, by a " commercial jump," as Mr. Howard 

 terms it, it would be difficult to find a good reason for its becom 

 ing destructively abundant 40 miles away, where little of its food- 

 plant is grown, leaving acres untouched about its area of first 

 colonization. Despite Mr. Howard's suggestion that my state 

 ment that the species doubtless entered the State via the Ohio 

 river is " hazardous," I am still willing to hazard the statement. 



Mr. Howard cites many instances where the asparagus-beetle 

 inhabits the Upper Austral life-zone, and a few instances where 

 it occurs on the Transition, yet the tenor of his argument is that 

 the former life-zone, only, is congenial and that its introduction 

 into the Transition is artificial, and cites one instance where it 

 seems to be dying out. West of the Alleghenies the situation 

 is somewhat different. According to Mr. Bolter, the species 

 was established both about Chicago and Rock Island, Illinois, 

 and has not been heard from for over 25 years in either locality, 

 both of which are in Upper Austral. The locality of infection 

 near Cleveland is in Upper Austral, and probably Salem also, 

 but Lordstown, the only locality in Ohio where the species has 

 been reported destructively abundant, is fairly and squarely on the 

 Transition. The Ohio and Nantucket exceptions, with those 

 given by Mr. Howard himself, would indicate that the statement 

 44 So far, there is nothing to conflict with the idea that the species 

 will not establish itself in the true transition region " would have 

 been a good confession with which to have opened his argument, 

 and that the fact of their not having previously been known to 

 occur in the transition-zone, along the upper Ohio river, is hardly 

 proof of their non-occurrence, or that the species necessarily 

 used a " commercial jump " in order to reach Ohio. 



My critic further says that I fail to appreciate the fundamental 

 truths which govern the distribution of species in my region ; that, 



