﻿OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 35 



necticut, Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire and extended 

 some distance into Maine. At Milestone and other places in Connecti- 

 cut the beetles were washed ashore in such numbers in September as 

 to poison the air, and the captain of a New London vessel found that 

 they boarded him in such numbers while at sea that the hatches had 

 to be closed. At many watering places, such as Cape May, Coney 

 Island, Long Branch, llockaway and Newport, they proved a ,i;reat 

 nuisance, beirg crushed and killed in large numbers by the continual 

 promenading along the beach. The New York Times reported their 

 impeding the progress of a train on the Central Railroad at Grinnell 

 Station: "the rails were covered with them for a mile, and after a few 

 revolutions of the drivers the wheels lost the friction and slipped as 

 if oiled; *** they had to be swept off, and]the track sanded before any 

 progrviss was made." 



The following items will further convey a good idea of the preva- 

 lence of the pest along the coast : 



A day or two ago a party of gentlemen fishing near the middle of Long Island 

 Hound, saw great quantities of potato bugs covering the surfice of the water as tar as 

 the eye could reach. Every floating article, as well as the water, was packed with 

 them, and many were clinging to eel-grass and sea-weed under the wat^r. The wind 

 was blowing from the south, and had probably carried them from the i-Iand, and they 

 were being wafted toward the Connecticut shore. Inland on the island the bugs 

 appear to be increasing in numbers, and, the potato vines being dry, they have attacked 

 the egg-plants, pepper plants, and tomato vines. — [Correspondence of N. Y. Trlbime 

 from Huntington, L. I. 



The sea coast in the vicinity of this city and the shores of Long Island Sound 

 are, at the present time, undergoing invasion by countless myriads of potato bugs. 

 Where the insects come from is a mystery. They seem to cling to the floating sea 

 weed and are left therewith on shore by the tide. At Coney Island and other points 

 directly on the ocean, the bugs are most numerous, showing that tliey have been 

 brought hither by sea currents, and by similar means have been swept into Long 

 Island Sound. It seems hardly possible that the insects will now fail to reach the 

 other side of the Atlantic, as they may find transportation on vessels, or be carried 

 over in the drifting weed of the Gulf Stream. — \_Scie)itific American, Aug. 5, 187G. 



While at Atlantic City, N. J., last Saturday, I noticed great numbers of the 

 Colorado Potato-beetle Hying about on the beach. I have never seen them so active 

 before. Their unusual activity there may be the result of hunger, as there is an entire 

 absence of the Solanacese, either wild or cultivated, in that vicinity.^ — [From a letter 

 from G. W. Letterman, AUenton, Mo., July 22, 1876. 



There were twice as many potato-beetles as all other kinds put together. They 

 evidentlj^ had been eastward bound, dropped into the ocean, and were brought back 

 by the rerurniug waves. We may infer also that many never reached the shore again 

 from which they had made their departure, but were gobbled up by the fishes that 

 sometimes plentifully inhabit those waters. Nor is this all : some distance up the Bay, 

 and nearer the town of "Lewes," there is a tressel work — called the "Pier" — which 

 extends a quarter of a mile out into Delaware Bay, upon which is a railroad track, 

 upon which the cars of the Junction Kailroad daily run to discharge their cargoes into 

 sailing vessels and steamboats that periodically leave the outer end of the pier for New 

 York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore and other points. In the morning and the 

 evening, when less commercial activity reigns, the pier is esteemed a capital place to 

 fish. Well, all along this pier, from the shore to the extreme outer end, the ubiquitous 

 potato-beetle was present, and at the outer end far more numerous than nearer shore. 

 The State of Delaware at the time was full of these beetles, from one end to the other. 

 The fruit-growers were shipping their peaches to market, and every cargo brought 

 down from the interior also brough*: down a goodly number of the beetles, and it is 



