﻿42 NINTH ANNUAL KEPORT 



ITS INTRODUCTION TO EUltOl'E. 



While some Europeans have been unduly alarmed, and inclined 

 to take proscriptive measures to prevent the insect's introduction, 

 others have ridiculed the idea that the insect could get to Europe, one 

 of them declaring that there is no more danger of the insect's chance 

 transportation than that of our rattlesnake. 



The opinion is also freely expressed by certain good authorities, 

 that the female could not retain her eggs during a whole passage. 

 They forget that the eggs are laid at different times, covering a period 

 of several weeks, and that the hibernating beetles are restless and 

 active, without inclination to lay, for several weeks in Fall and 

 Spring. 



The actual occurrence of a living beetle on the Bremen Dock 

 Yards, in a cargo from New York, was extensively reported in the press 

 last Summer, but as the accuracy of the report was subsequently 

 questioned, I took some pains to ascertain the truth. The German 

 Consul at New York, H. A. Schumacher, obtained for me every 

 assurance of the fact ; while Prof. Dr. Buchenau, of Bremen, confirms 

 it. The beetle was found alive in unloading a cargo of Indian corn 

 from the steamer "Neckar," and another specimen was found in mid- 

 ocean on the coat of a passenger of the same vessel. 



Others, and among them some good entomologists, particularly 

 of the Belgian Entomological Society, continue to express the belief 

 that our Doryphora would not thrive if introduced. I have already 

 expressed my belief that " an insect which has spread from the high 

 table lands of the Rocky Mountains across the Mississippi V'alley to 

 the Atlantic, and that flourishes alike in tlie States of Minnesota, 

 Wisconsin, Upper Canada and Maine, and in Maryland, Virginia and 

 Texas — in fact, wherever the potato succeeds — will not likely be dis- 

 comfited in the potato-growing districts of Europe." — 7th Rep., p. 5. 



The more serious and weighty reasons against the possibility of 

 acclimatization, have been urged by H. W. Bates, F. L. S.,in a memoir 

 published in 1S75, in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of 

 England, (Vol. XI, Part II). He argues, firstly, that no American 

 beetle has been acclimated in Europe, though several European 

 species are known to have been in America ; secondly, that the group 

 to which Doryphora belongs is not represented in Europe, and is 

 remarkably restricted to elevated plateaux in the interior of this con- 

 tinent, and range toward the tropics rather than toward the north ; 

 thirdly, that the insect has not passed west of the dividing ridge of the 

 Rocky Mountains, or got foothold on the Pacific Coast, which in climate 

 more nearly resembles Western Europe. 



