230 PIEST ANKUAL REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



times, where two or three young apples were growing from a single bud, 

 they have mounted upon the buck of one another, until a cluster of 

 excited, struggling beetles had accumulated to the size of a man's fist. 

 When they occur in such force, not a single apple escapes, and oven 

 the clothing of a person entering the orchard is nearly covered by them. 

 In fields being cut for grass, it is stated that they liave arisen in such 

 numbers as to get in the faces and cover the clothing of the mowers. 

 They eat the ox-eye daisy {Leucantliennini vulgare) with such a relish 

 that it would be most fortunate if their forces could be concentrated 

 on this noxious weed. They also often occur on the blossoms of the 

 common elder {SamMicus Canadensis), and on the sumach {Rhus ty- 

 fliina and R. glabra). 



Its Ravages. 



The earliest notice of its ravages in this country appears to have 

 been in Massachusetts, in 1810, where it was reported as entirely de- 

 stroying a crop of grapes. In 1825, it was so abundant in the same 

 State, that the State Board of Agriculture offered a premium for the 

 best essay on the insect, which should give its natural history and 

 point out efficient means for its destruction. The award was made to 

 Dr. Harris, for his essay, published in the Massachusetts Agricultural 

 Eepository, as above cited. So numerous were the beetles at this time, 

 that a large white ox-heart cherry-tree, fifty feet in height, and usually 

 bearing from four to five bushels of cherries, was stripped of every leaf 

 within five days after its first attack, and upon the second day not a 

 cherry could be found on the tree which did not have upon it from two 

 to ten of the beetles. 



Mr. Bethune {loc. cit.) records an attack made by the beetles upon 

 his garden, at Oakville, Ont.: " They came in vast numbers and de- 

 voured every thing — nothing appeared to come amiss to them ; they 

 were especially destructive to the grape-vines." In Kansas, in certain 

 years, they are stated to have eaten up the fruit of whole orchards of 

 peaches. 



In 1880 the beetle was unusually prevalent in various parts of the 

 State of New York, and particularly in the vicinity of Albany. In 

 Schodack, it attacked the leaves of the fruit trees first, changing to 

 the young fruit as soon as it appeared. Cherries, apples, and pears, 

 were speedily devoured by it. At Loudonville, it was very destructive 

 to the leaves and blossoms of grape- vines, cherry leaves, young apples, 

 rose bushes, various garden vegetables, and the white daisy. "Millions 

 of the beetles hung in clusters from the apple-trees." A correspondent, 

 writing from this place, represents the demonstration as a singularly 

 local one, being almost confined to his own farm, while his neighbor's 



