E. A. OEMEEOD — ECOXOinC ENTOMOLOGY. 



Colorado beetle — Boryphora decemlineafa, 

 1. Beetle — magnified. 2, 3, and 4. Beetle, larva, and eggs, natural size. 



Amongst foreign insects the Colorado beetle, Dorxjphora decern- 

 lineata, gives us an excellent instance of the effect of circumstances 

 in spreading or checking an insect pest. We heard nothing of it 

 till (following the opinion of the late Mr. A. Murray) the gradual 

 introduction of the potato from the east of America formed as it 

 "were a bridge on which the beetle, transferring itself from its 

 normal food plant, the Solanum hirsidum, crossed from its special 

 home in Xebraska and Iowa to the shores of the Atlantic. The 

 novelty as well as the importance of the attack raised the popular 

 energies, and we know on the authority of the agricultural 

 reports that where the proper remedy was applied, the insect 

 succumbed; where this was not done, it throve. The viae 

 Phylloxera is another instance in point. The great importance 

 of the subject has drawn thorough attention to it, and experiments, 

 especially on the effect of applications at once beneficial to 

 vegetation and prejudicial to insect life, are being instituted, 

 which have a prospect of benefiting us both here and in their 

 extended application. 



Often, whether to field or garden crops, or to our forest trees, 

 though there is much injury done that we do not at present know 

 how to guard against, there is also much that the most ordinary 

 observation and care would prevent, quite independently of any 

 scientific knowledge, and the great point to be fairly driven into 

 and kept constantly before the minds of the unscientific is, that the 

 maggots, cateiijillars, larvae — whatever they may call them — will 

 certainly go on feeding on the attacked plant till they are ready 

 for the commencement of the change which, as certainly, unless 

 preventive means occur, will send them out beetles, moths, or 

 whatever they may be, to continue their species by scores or 

 hundreds for every (apparently) insignificant grub. But we want 

 something more. Take, for instance, the chiysomeledious beetle 



