472 



MINNESOTA STATE HOKTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



A NEW STRAWBERRY PEST. 



Harpalus pennsyivanicns. 



PROF. F. I,. WASHBURN, STATE ENTOMOLOGIST, ST. ANTHONY PARK. 



This beetle, hitherto so useful in eating noxious larvae that we 

 have unhesitatingly accepted him as our friend and classed him 

 for years under the head of beneficial insects, has this year, for the 

 first time apparently in Minnesota, developed a most reprehensible 

 habit, which bids fair to put him under the ban. It seems that 

 though preeminently carnivorous in taste it is enough of a vege- 

 tarian to eat the seeds of the rag weed {Ambrosia). From the 

 seeds of this humble plant it was but a step to eat the seeds of 



Harpalus Pennsylvanicus, a New Strawberry Pest. 



the strawberry, a patch of which plants may have been near at 

 hand. After tasting the pulp of the strawberry in eating the seed 

 we can hardly blame him for acquiring a fondness for this luscious 

 fruit. He is somewhat fastidious in his treatment of the seed, eat- 

 ing only the interior and discarding the hull. 



On July ioth I received the following letter from Mr. Henry 

 Grinder, of Hinckley. "Dear Sir: Can you tell me any way to 

 get rid of the black beetle which is eating my strawberries? He 

 works at night. The seed of the berry is all he seems to care for;he 

 cracks that and eats the kernel of it. They hide in the mulching 

 between the rows in the day. They are very plentiful this year. Is 

 there anything I can put on the plants that will drive them away 

 and not injure the berry? They have destroyed over two-thirds 

 of the berries. Please let me know if there is anything I can do 

 to stop them." Later, under date of July 13, he again writes as fol- 

 lows : "I have grown berries here for four years, and this is the 

 first year they have troubled the strawberries." 



