TEE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 99 



Remedies. — The same remedies will apply equally to all five of 

 the Blister-beetles that have just been described. Let it be remem- 

 bered that during the heat of the day, these beetles are ready with 

 their wings and may be driven from the vines. Thus the most prac- 

 tical and efficient mode of destroying them, is to drive them into a 

 windrow of hay or straw, and kill them by setting fire to it. As they 

 all appear rather late in the season, I should recommend the planting 

 of early varieties, which will be more likely to escape their attacks; 

 and especially of the Peach Blow variety, the leaves of which seem 

 to be more distasteful to them than those of any other variety. 



THE THREE-LINED LEAF-BEETLE— Lema ttilineata, Olivier.— (Coleoptera, Ckrysomelidse.) 



The three first insects, described and figured above as infesting 

 the potato-plant, attack it only in the 

 larva state. The five next, namely the 

 five Blister-beetles, attack it exclu- 

 sively in the perfect state. The three 

 that remain to be considered attack it 

 both in the larva and in the perfect 

 state, but go underground to pass into 

 the pupa state , in which state — like 

 all other Beetles, without exception — 

 they are quiescent, and eat nothing at all. 



The larva of the Three-lined Leaf-beetle may be distinguished from 

 all other insects that prey upon the potato by its habit of covering 

 itself with its own excrement. In Figure 42 <z, this larva is shown in 

 profile, both full and half grown, covered with the soft, greenish ex- 

 crementitious matter which from time to time it discharges. Figure 

 42 c, gives a somewhat magnified view of the pupa ; and Figure 42 b, 

 shows the last few joints of the abdomen of the larva, magnified, and 

 viewed, not in profile, but from above. The vent of the larva, as will 

 be seen from this last figure, is situated on the upper surface of the 

 last joint, so that its excrement naturally falls upon its back, and by 

 successive discharges is pushed forward towards its head, till the whole 



years before Fabricius named and described this insect as the "Margined Blister-Beetle" (Lytta 

 marginata), it was named and described as the " Ash-gray Blister-beetle" (Lytta cinerea), by Foer- 

 8ter. Hence, in accordance with the inexorable "law of priority," the obedient scientific world 

 has been called upon to adopt Foerster's name for this species ; and as two species belonging to the 

 same genus can not, of course, have the same specific name, the true Ash-gray Blister-beetle of 

 Fabricius (Lytta cinerea), which is really ash-gray all over, has been re-christened by the name of 

 " Fabi icius' Blister-beetle" (Lytta Fabricii.) Positively, this continual chopping and changing in 

 scientific nomenclature is getting to be an unbearable nuisance, and must be put a step to. Other- 

 wise one-half of the time of every entomologist, which might be much better occupied in studying 

 out scientific facts, will be frittered away in studying out scientific phrases. 



Many writers, in giving the scientific designation of an insect, neglect to add the name of the 

 author who first described it. This practice often leads to error, uncertainty, and confusion, as the 

 preceding example will at once show. If, for instance, we write simply " Lytta cinerea," bow can 

 the reader tell whether we mean the species described under that name by Foerster, or the very dis- 

 tinct species described under the very same name "cinerea" by Fabricius? Whereas, if we add the 

 author's name, all doubts upon the subject nre at once removed; and we can snap our fingers at 

 those wearisome and interminable disputes about the priority of mimes and the law of priority, 

 which take up so much space in scientific papers, while they add absolutely nothing to our knowl- 

 edge of the facts recorded by the finger of God in the great book of Mature. 



