COLORADO POTATO-BEETLE. 67 



that section have suffered serious damage. That the Skunk 

 should eat Potato-bugs has no intrinsic improbability, and I think 

 every one must be impressed with a feeling of the extreme ap- 

 propriateness of the diet. 



The testimony with respect to these insects being eaten by 

 domestic fowls is contradictory. The truth seems to be that some 

 chickens will eat them and others^will not, or that they will eat 

 them under some circumstances, such as the pressure of extreme 

 hunger. My next door neighbor, Mr, Wurts, says he has taught 

 his fowls to eat the bugs by throwing them down to them like so 

 much corn, when they were hungry ; and he thinks that if all 

 chickens do not eat them it is because their education lias been 

 neglected. 



The question will naturally be asked, why, with all these ene- 

 mies, do the Potato-bugs continue to multiply, like the locusts of 

 Egypt ? The best answer I can give is, that no one of these 

 many enemies, if we except, perhaps, the parasitic Lydella, is ex- 

 clusively appropriated to these insects, like the Tachina of the 

 Tussock-moth or the Chalcis of the Bark-louse, mentioned in the 

 earlier part of this report. In other words these various enemies 

 depredate upon the Potato-bugs when they happen to come in 

 their way, but do not depend upon them for subsistence. Be- 

 sides, the predaceous insects above enumerated do not belong to 

 the prolific class, and therefore are too few in individuals to make 

 much headway againt such a multitudinous host as the Colora- 

 do Potato bugs. I have repeatedly walked through potato fields 

 swarming with bugs, with the express intention of taking note of 

 their destroyers, without seeing any creature seriously deserving 

 of the name. 



Nature, if left to her own resources, often exhibits wonderful 

 curative and recuperative powers, which are ordinarily sufficient 

 to preserve the balance between the world of insects and that of 

 plants. If in any case, like the present, she seems to fail, it is 

 because we have abruptly disturbed the balance by supplying 

 these prolific insects with a superabundance of congenial food. 

 And now that we are overrun by them we stand aghast at the 

 consequences. But nature often accommodates her economy to 

 human wants, and rectifies our errors and our follies. And I 

 have no doubt that the Colorado Potato-beetle, like other nox- 



