252 Fiftieth Report on the State Museum 



Island. It is now generally distributed through the States of Maryland, 

 Delaware, New Jersey and in Pennsylvania along the Delaware river. 

 It is known in Connecticut and Rhode Island, and is widely, though 

 locally, distributed in Massachusetts. In the latter State it has worked 

 along the seacoast, establishing itself in places where its food-plant was 

 found. It lias also made its way to a considerable distance inland, pre- 

 sumably on the plants purchased for the setting out of new beds. In this 

 manner it has extended back from the sea for a distance of nearly forty 

 miles. The insect has been abundant for a number of years at Berlin, 

 Mass., where large quantities of asparagus are grown for the Boston 

 market, and it has made its way along the coast to Portsmouth, N. H., 

 and up the Merrimac river to Nashua, N. H. It may also enter 

 both New Hampshire and Vermont through the Connecticut valley, 

 besides touching the southern coast of Maine. 



In this State the common species occurs over all Long Island. It has 

 been traced up the Hudson river valley as far as Mechanicsville, about 

 twenty miles north of Albany. It occurs in a number of widely separated 

 localities in the western central portion of the State, having been reported 

 from the following places: Vernon, Oneida county; Oswego, Oswego 

 county: Newark, Wayne county; Geneva, Ontario county; Geneseo, 

 Livingston county ; Rochester, Monroe county ; and Buffalo, Erie county. 

 The insect will probably spread to all parts of the State lying within the 

 Upper Austral Life-zone (see Plate IV in my nth Report). It is known 

 in nine counties in the northeastern part of Ohio, and is now slowly 

 spreading over that State. The twelve-spotted species may be expected 

 to eventually occupy a not much less extended range of territory. 



Remedies. 



The methods of value against the common asparagus beetle will be 

 found of service in fighting this insect under similar conditions. The 

 larvae of the twelve-spotted form feed in the berries the latter part of the 

 season, and are then out of reach of the common insecticides, but when 

 feeding on the foliage they can be destroyed by dusting air-slacked lime 

 over the plants when still wet with dew. The beetles can be poisoned 

 upon the foliage with Paris green or arsenate of lead. If the insects arc 

 very abundant during the cutting season, it may pay to allow portions of 

 the field to grow up and serve as lures to attract the beetles from the 

 young shoots, where they may be poisoned. 



