344 ANNUAL REPORT S^nTHSONL\N ESTSTITUTION, 1940 



that its presence in the United States might have resulted from the 

 movement of food for the cavah-y during these military operations. 

 However, with the now well-known ability of this insect to spread 

 under its own power, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado may have 

 been infested long before this time and even before white man found 

 his way into the region. However, the facts that Mulsant first de- 

 scribed the beetle in 1850 from specimens received from a collector 

 in Mexico, that Bland in 1864 redescribed the species from speci- 

 mens taken in Mexico, and that related plant-feeding Coccinellids are 

 foreign to the United States, with the exception of one, indicate that 

 the bean beetle's original home was "south of the border." 



Irrespective of its original home, war seems to have marked the 

 two significant dates of its importance in the United States, as its 

 occurrence in Alabama has been also attributed to the movement of 

 large shipments of alfalfa hay from the AVest into northern Ala- 

 bama during 1918. This year may have been the actual date of its in- 

 troduction into the Southeast, as authentic reports by various growers 

 indicate that the pest was not uncommon about Birmingham, Ala., 

 in 1919. 



Even in the light of the early knowledge of this pest's severe at- 

 tacks on beans in certain regions of the West, it does not appear that 

 any apprehension was felt as to its gaining a foothold in the eastern 

 States. At any rate the literature does not reveal that any steps 

 were taken to prevent its introduction into the East. Although 

 Stone in 1883 predicted for this beetle almost as unenviable a repu- 

 tation as the potato beetle, it was almost 50 years later before the 

 bean beetle established its reputation as a major pest of the bean crop 

 of the East, and then it came to the East as a "stowaway," and not 

 by natural spread as did the potato beetle. 



With its discovery in Alabama the agricultural interests of the 

 South became alarmed and urged the Federal Government to lend 

 assistance in coping with the problem. The alarm felt was justifia- 

 ble, as during the second year of its occurrence in the East the in- 

 sect was so destructive in the Birmingham, Ala., area that the price 

 of green beans rose in some instances to four times their normal value. 

 To increase the apprehension were the facts that the insect multi- 

 plied and spread rapidly in its new habitat and little was known of 

 its ability to destroy other crops belonging to the same botanical 

 family, so important to the agriculture of the South and East, such 

 as cowpeas, soybeans, and even the clovers. 



SPREAD 



The rapidity with which the beetle spread in a general northeasterly 

 direction was remarkable. By 1930, 10 years after its discovery in 

 Alabama, it had become a familiar sight to the bean growers, both 



