OF THE FARM AND GABDEK. 95 



whose name has since become so familiar to every ento- 

 mologist. While on this expedition, extending through 

 1819 and 1820, numerous specimens of a species of beetle 

 were found on the Upper Missouri, near the base of the 

 Kocky Mountains, which some four years later (1824) Mr. 

 Say described in a paper read before the Academy of 

 Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, under the name of 

 Dorypliora IQ-lineata, an insect that has since received 

 the common name of Colorado Potato-beetle. 



At the time of its discovery, neither Mr. Say nor any 

 of his associates could have had the remotest idea that this 

 insect would at some future day become one of the greatest 

 pests that ever afflicted the farms and gardens of this 

 country. Later explorers, visiting the same regions of 

 country where Mr. Say originally found the " ten-liners," 

 discovered it feeding on a wild species of Solanum (8. 

 rostratum), a plant allied to and belonging to the same 

 genus as the cultivated Potato (Solanum tuberosum). 

 The pioneers on the western plains and prairies little 

 imagined that they were in such close proximity to an 

 insect that would soon pive an immense amount of 



O 



trouble, and make the cultivation of the Potato anything 

 but a pleasant and profitable occupation. But in 1861, 

 Mr. Thomas Murphy, of Atchison, Kansas, reported that 

 they were so numerous in his garden that he was enabled 

 in a very short time to gather two bushels of them. His 

 potatoes were quickly destroyed, and the beetles then 

 spread in all directions. Later they appeared in parts 

 of Iowa, and subsequently passed eastward, cross- 

 ing the Mississippi Eiver, and appearing in several 

 localities almost simultaneously within the State of 

 Illinois. In stating that this insect passes from one 

 locality to another, it must not be understood that it 

 migrates, it merely spreads, enough remaining behind to 

 keep up an abundant stock, and they are probably now 

 no less abundant at points in the Western States than 



