298 



INSECTS AND OTHER SMALL ANIMALS 



Potato Bugs (Colorado potato beetles}. This insect is 

 improperly called a bug. It is a beetle, and one of the 

 most destructive of its kind. It originated in the 

 Rocky Mountains, and at first lived on a kind of wild 

 potato plant. As soon as cultivated potatoes were 



introduced, the beetle 

 devoured the leaves of 

 the cultivated vari- 

 ety and soon spread 

 throughout the coun- 

 try. 



The beetle lays from 

 five hundred to one 

 thousand eggs in a sea- 

 son, usually in clusters 

 on the under side of the 

 leaf of the potato. As 

 soon as these hatch, the 

 young larvae commence 

 their feast on the leaves, where they keep on eating and 

 growing for about two weeks ; then they bury them- 

 selves in the ground to pass the pupal stage. After 

 ten days they come out as beetles, with the distinctive 

 yellow-striped wings. In the imago stage as well as in 

 the larval the beetle eats the potato vines, but they 

 are especially destructive during the larval stage. 



The best means of killing potato beetles is with a 

 spray of some arsenical solution. Paris green in water, 

 about one pound to fifty gallons, is probably the most 

 common means of destroying the beetle. Some prefer 

 to mix Paris green with dust, or preferably flour (one 

 pound of Paris green in four pounds of flour), and shake 

 it over the vines when they are wet with dew. 



FIG. 151. Potato Beetles, Larva, and Eggs. 



