﻿OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



that the Doryphora, awakened by our early warm weather, could 

 resist the effects of the late cold which we are apt to have in these 

 European countries." The idea that the climate of North America is 

 less extreme than that of Europe is rather novel to us of the cisat- 

 lantic; and from a sufficiently long residence in England, France and 

 •Germany, I am decidedly of the opinion that they delude themselves 

 who suppose that Doryphora could not thrive in the greater part of 

 Europe; and that to abandon all precautionary measures against its 

 introduction on such grounds would be the height of folly. An insect 

 which has spread from the high table lands of the Rocky Mountains 

 across the Mississippi Valley to the Atlantic, and that flourishes alike 

 in the States of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Connecticut, and in Mary- 

 land, Virginia and Texas — in fact, wherever the potato succeeds — will 

 not likely be discomfited in the potato-growing districts of Europe. 

 Some few, again, have ridiculed the very idea of the insect's passage to 

 Europe in any State, arguing that it is an impossibility for any coleop- 

 terous insect to be thus transferred from one country to another. 

 Considering that half the weeds of American agriculture, and a large 

 proportion of her worst insect pests, including two beetles — viz: the 

 Asparagus Beetle ( Crioceris asparagi^) and the Elm Leaf-beetle 

 ( Galeruca cahnariensis) — in the very same family as our Doryphora, 

 have been imported among us from Europe, there would seem poor 

 foundalionfor such argument. Moreover, a number of other insects— 

 among them some beetles — of less importance, may be included in the 

 number of importations ; and the Rape Butterfly {Pieris rapce^ whose 

 progress westward has been simultaneous with the Doryphora's east- 

 ward, and whose importation dates back but a few years, bears witness 

 to the fact that insects more delicate and with fewer chances of safe 

 transport than Doryphora, may succeed in getting alive from one 

 country to the other, and in gaining a foothold in the new home. 



The ravages of the insect, bad as they are, very naturally get 

 exaggerated at such a distance from its native home, and the following 

 from the London Gardener's Chronicle^ gives altogether a too gloomy 

 picture : " When once afield of potatoes has been attacked, all hope 

 •of a harvest must be given up ; in a few days it is changed into an arid 

 waste — a mere mass of dried stalks." It should not be forgotten that 

 the American farmer by means of intelligence and a little Paris Green 

 is pretty much master of the Doryphora. 



One of the most amusing things growing out of the European 

 ^igitation about this insect that has come to my notice, occurred in 

 our own city of St. Louis. Our worthy Mayor Brown was importuned 

 by a Belgian official for information about the insect, when, instead 



