Insects Injurious to the Potato and Apple. 571 



that it luis done great damage in Vermont. Tliey are not 

 often seen during the hottest parts of the day, as they feed 

 usually in the morning and evening, burrowing in the earth 

 the rest of the time. They lay their eggs early in August 

 in the ground where they hatch in about four "weeks into 

 slender grubs, of a yellow color, with dark or black stripes 

 and reddish heads. 



Another of the blister beetles found in Vermont is Lytta 

 atrata, Fahr. It is about the size of the preceding, being 

 about one-half inch long. It is jet black. It occurs on 

 Solidago altissmia and other species of the golden-rod, and 

 sometimes appears in considerable numbers in potato fields 

 where it eats the leaves of the plants. On account of the 

 fondness of this beetle for golden-rod, it is very unwise to 

 allow that plant to grow near a potato field. Indeed a 

 hedge of this or any other weed about cultivated fields is 

 capable of great damage, for, aside from the slovenly ap- 

 pearance of such a growth and the certainty that hosts of 

 seeds will be scattered where they are. not wanted, there is 

 the additional inconvenience that it affords shelter for many 

 injurious insects. Many of our most injurious species can 

 live comfortably, at least for a time, upon difierent species 

 of wild plants, and some feed upoii either wild or cultivated 

 plants as may be most convenient and pass readily from 

 one to the other. 



Another and larger beetle is Lytta marginata, Fahr. It 

 is nearly three-fourths of an inch long. The head and 

 thorax are covered with gray down, while the wing covers 

 are black with a narrow margin of gray ; the under side of 

 the body and the legs are gray. It lives on the Clematis 



