[41] Report of the State Entomologist. 137 



Podisus spinosus (Dallas). 



The Spined Soldier-bug. 



(Ord. Hemiptera: Fam. Pentatomid^.) 



Arma spinosa Dallas : List Hemip. Br. Mus., i, 1851, p. 98, 7. 



I mail with this note a box containing three specimens of an insect 

 which has recently appeared as a destroyer of the Colorado potato- 

 beetle. At tirst the farmers mistook them for an additional damage 

 to the crop, and were dismayed, but investigation revealed them as a 

 blessing. They are very voracious, and destroy a vast number of 

 larvfe and bugs in the larval or soft state, which is the time when 

 they most injure the vines. The inclosed insects were confined under 

 a glass for about an hour with sis fully grown pupse, when, unfolding 

 a slender proboscis, they fastened it to some portion of the bug, fol- 

 lowing it about as it attempted to escape, never for an instant relax- 

 ing their hold till their bug was dead. They are so very lively that 

 I was obliged to inclose them in cotton to prevent their escape, that 

 they may reach you alive. If Eastern potato growers are so over- 

 whelmed with potato bugs as Western farmers have been, it would 

 not seem a whimsical idea to import some of these destroyers to their 

 devastated fields. 



F. T. 



Carbon Cliff, III. 



The insect accompanying the above interesting communication, is 



recognized as one of our most efficient allies in the contest with the 



Colorado potato-beetle, viz., Podisus spinosus 



(Dallas) ; or, as it has been properly named from a 



spine which projects from its thorax on each side, 



and from its bold, soldier-like habit of attack, " the 



spined soldier-bug." It is a true bug, belonging to 



_ „ „ the order of Hemiptera, among which are numerous 



Fig. 18.— Podisus y^ » & 



SPINOSUS (Dailas).-a, species which render us valuable service in preying 



the beak or proboscis ^pon our iniurious insects, after the manner above 



enlareed; h, the in- ^ .,,_., . -r^. -, o mi 



sect with one wing described. It IS shown m Figure 18. The sugges- 



exteuded. tion of the importation of this parasite, is one 



which could easily be carried into effect, and which should be 

 done were it not that it is already an inhabitant of the Atlantic 

 States, and of common occurrence (as also over a large portion of the 

 United States), and has long since entered upon, and continued to 

 prosecute, its valuable work in the reduction of the number of the 

 Colorado potato-beetle as well as many other insect pests, as cut- 

 worms, the caterpillars of other Lepidoptera, etc. 

 18 



