28 



and insecticides to check this beetle, and every year, notwith- 

 standing this great expense, it does considerable damage to the 

 potato crop. Several kinds of birds destroy this insect, and a 

 few species in particular are known to be very effective. Pro- 

 fessor Beal gives a striking instance of the effect produced upon 

 this pest by the rose-breasted grosbeak. A small potato field 

 had been so badly infested with the beetles that the vines were 

 completely riddled. Rose-breasted grosbeaks visited that field 

 every day, and finally brought their fledged young to the top- 

 most rail of the fence and fed them there with the beetles as 

 they were gathered from the plants. On a careful inspection a 

 few days later not a single beetle or larva could be found. The 

 birds had cleared the field and saved the potatoes. 1 Many 

 similar instances have been reported. 



Early in the last decade Dr. Thomas E. Miller, then president 

 of the State negro college at Orangeburg, South Carolina, told 

 Mr. James Henry Rice, Jr., then chief game warden of that 

 State, that he had no trouble with potato beetles. Investiga- 

 tion revealed the fact that bobwhites were abundant around his 

 fields, where no shooting was allowed. His fields had been prac- 

 tically free from the beetles for years, while in the same county 

 and in adjoining counties where birds were shot off it was neces- 

 sary to make war on these beetles from the beginning to the end 

 of the potato season. Four years later Mr. Rice himself planted 

 potatoes in a field of 20 acres where for two years previously all 

 shooting had been prohibited by a land company that had 

 bought the tract. Mr. Rice allowed no shotgun to be carried 

 on the place. Six coveys of bobwhites came into the field to 

 feed. The potatoes were not sprayed, as it was impossible at 

 the right time to get help to do the work. Paris green and 

 lime were applied once, but the young man in charge wate taken 

 ill and the insecticide was washed off immediately by heavy 

 rains. The beetles swarmed into the field. Mr. Rice watched 

 them and saw the bobwhites eating both beetles and larvae, and 

 clearing the rows. The field was left to the birds and suffered 

 no appreciable injury from the beetles. In 1915 I had a similar 

 experience at my farm with a small patch of potatoes and a 

 flock of bobwhites. 



i United States Department of Agriculture, Farmers Bulletin No. 54, 1904, p. 29. 



