OP THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 15 



emptied out and destroyed. I caught bushels of them last summer, 

 with but a small amount of labor. 



I am indebted to the publishers of the Prairie Farmer for the 

 illustration, which first appeared in that journal. 



PREPARING FOR IT IN EUROPE. 



In December, 1872, Col. Fred. Hecker, of Summerfield, Illinois, 

 the well-known and enthusiastic political agitator and tribune, sent to 

 the Gartenlaule (Heft 3, 1873,) an article on this insect. The article 

 was a condensation, and in some parts a literal translation from these 

 Reports, my figures being copied to illustrate it. It has since been 

 retranslated and the illustrations recopied (and accuracy is not apt to 

 increase with these processes, and certainly has not in these instances) 

 for several English journals, over the signature "i^/'. //., State of Illi- 

 nois;''^ and since the original translator didn't think it worth while to 

 indicate the source from which he drew either his information or illus- 

 tration, it is not surprising that the Gartenlauhei^ left Avithout credit in 

 the retranslations. It is surprising, however, that solid journals, like 

 Ilardvyicke'' s Science Gossip and The London Gardeners'' Chronicle^ 

 should have been so easily led into the consideration of such myths as 

 '"''Cantharis viniaria^^ ^'' DorypJiora decern-'punctata^'' etc. Some of 

 the articles in the English periodicals on this " new enemy of the po- 

 tato " close with the advice that "in the importation of seed of Amer- 

 ican potatoes, which is now carried on to a very large extent, the 

 utmost caution should be exercised to prevent the introduction of the 

 beetle to this country." 



Indeed, Mr. J. Algernon Clarke, Secretary of the Central Cham- 

 ber of Agriculture, on the 10th of February addressed a letter to Mr. 

 Gladstone, calling his attention to the imminent risk to which the 

 United Kingdom, especially Ireland, is exposed, and went so far as to 

 suggest that the importation of potatoes from the United States and 

 British America should at once be prohibited. 



In 1871, speaking of the eastward march of this insect, I wrote as 

 follows: '"Indeed, it is quite possible that even the broad Atlantic 

 may not stay its course; but that when once the beetles swarm in the 

 streets of New York as they did in those or St. Louis last spring, some 

 female, loaded with fertile eggs, and hidden in the nooks and crannies 

 of some vessel, may be safely borne over to the land of 'murphies,' 

 where she might easily found a colony which would soon spread con- 

 sternation into other potato-growing countries to the eastward. In 

 giving, through Sir Walter Raleigh, the precious tiiber to Europe, 

 America conferred upon the Old World an everlasting boon. She 



