218 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Germany. This year the rauch-feaied pest made its first 

 European appearance towards the end of June in a potato 

 field near Cologne ; and during the present month it has 

 appeared in Liverpool. It is here at last; and it is a matter 

 of national importance to meet it promptly and effectually. 



This year it will probably do little harm : the crops are 

 mostly fully grown, and some already stored; but the habit 

 of the beetle to hibernate twelve or eighteen inches below 

 the surface of the ground secures it from changes of tempera- 

 ture ; and when next year's warmth, at the end of April, is 

 bringing up the potatoes is ihe time when the beetle may be 

 looked for to come up also, and begin its ravages. It is a foe 

 of no ordinary strength ; its powers of flight help to disperse 

 it widely. As we have seen, near Cologne, burning the 

 infested crop is no security against pupse buried too deeply 

 to suffer from the heat; and in its American journey it has 

 shown that the colder rather than the hotter climate is suited 

 to it. Where in possession of a field, a few days sufBce for 

 the destruction of the potato leaves; and, once started, the suc- 

 cessive broods recur through the warm season at an interval of 

 only about six weeks from the laying of the egg to the develop- 

 ment of the perfect beetle ready to lay again. The eggs (fig. 4) 

 are laid on the young shoots, or on the under side of the potato 

 leaf, and hatch in about a week. The larvae (orange-coloured 

 grubs, fig. 3) are full fed in about a fortnight, when they go 

 down into the ground, and changing there into pupae reappear 

 as developed beetles in another fortnight. 



The beetle \[se\i', Doryophora deceniliueata (fig. 2, and fig. 1 

 magnified), is about half an inch long, broadly oval in shape, 

 and easily distinguishable by its orange colour, with ten 

 black stripes, five on each wing-case. The female lays from 

 seven hundred to a thousand eggs at one time, and three or 

 more broods may be produced each season. In their own 

 country they may be seen in the invaded districts literally 

 everywhere: on roads and fences, in the houses and the 

 carriages, in every cranny they can get into ; and the sum 

 total of injury to crops attacked is simply utter ruin. At 

 present we have only to do with stragglers; and it is of the 

 greatest importance to spread a knowledge of their appearance 

 over the country as rapidly as possible, that none of these 

 may cscajie ; everyone that is found should be destroyed at 



