206 HALF HOUKS WITH INSECTS. [Packard. 



harmonies of nature, this coeval birth of flowers and insects, 

 each modifying the other ; new forms of animals giving rise 

 to new floral creations ! 



But in this utilitarian age and country it will not do to 

 speak of field insects without mentioning those which ravage 

 our field crops, as well as those which aid introducing them. 

 Perhaps no insect in this country, except the cotton worm, 

 has carried more consternation among farmers than the 

 plump-bodied, phlegmatic, well-to-do looking beetle, which 

 from living a quiet, harmless life on the wild, useless species 

 of Solanum in the valleys at the base of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains, has suddenly invaded our potato fields and robbed our 

 farmers of hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of this 

 important crop. Not a European importation, this insect 

 has made its home in a region of our country differing far 

 more in its ph3'sical and climatic features from its native 

 territory than does Europe from the northeastern states. It 

 is an example, to use the language of the botanists, of a 

 prepotent insect, which, lilce a weed when introduced into a 

 new country, increases far more rapidly than at home, and 

 crowds out the native insects, asserting itself everywhere in 

 our farms and highways and byways. 



Mr. B. D. "Walsh, late state entomologist of Illinois, has 

 given us an interesting history, in the "Practical Entomol- 

 ogist," of the first appearance of this insect. He shows 

 that the original home of this beetle was in the valleys 

 of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado Territory, where for 

 nearly fifty years it has been known to feed upon a wild spe- 

 cies of potato (Solanum rostratum). When these vallej's 

 became settled and the potato planted there, this beetle 

 adopted it as its food, and then began a new chapter in its 

 history. It should be remembered that the potato is also a 

 species of Solanum, and the change in the nature of the 

 beetle's food not great. By 1859 it had spread eastward to 

 within a hundred miles of Omaha, Nebraska. In 1861 it 



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