PACKAUD.J 



THE COLORADO POTATO-BEETLE. 



721 



daut insect in early summer, living in the center of a mass of frost on 



the leaA'es of grass. The larva is to be 



found concealed in a mass of frost late 



in I\Iay and early in June ; the adult I 



is exceedingly abundant late in sum- ^j 



mer. 



Cloverisattacked by various insects, 

 especially the larva of Brastcria erccJi- 

 tia, a moth very abundant in May, and 

 again in August and September, in 

 grass-lands. The seeds are sometimes 

 inhabited by minute weevils, while 

 clover, when stacked or even housed, yig. ii.-Spittle 'insect, a, larva, en- 

 is sometimes injured by the "clover- larged; h, natural size of larva; c, 

 worm," the larva of Asopia costalis, a adult, enlarged. 

 dull, whitish worm, changing to a lilac-colored moth ornamented with 

 golden lines and fringes. 



The Colorado Potato-Bertle, Leptinotarsa decemlineaia of Gemminger and Harold, 

 Doriiphora 10-Uneata Say. — Devouring the leaves, sometimes the tubers, a large, thick- 

 bodied, reddish-orange grub, spotted on the sides with black, changing underground into 

 a large hemispherical yellow beetle about half an inch long, with ten wide black stripes 

 on the back ; three broods of the w/6rm appearing in one season. 



Its original hahitat. — This beetle was originally described by Mr. Say 

 in 1824, having been found by him the year previous, when he remarked, 

 "This species seems to be not uncommon on the Upper Missouri, 

 where it was obtained by Mr. Nuttall and by myself. The variety 

 (white with two of the lines united, probably the species jHMcfrt) I found on. 

 the Arkansas." (Journal Academy of jSTatural Sciences Philadelphia, vol. 

 iii, 1824.) This would indicate that its native habitat was the plains of 

 Dakota, Western Nebraska and Kansas, Colorado, and perhaps the 

 western portion of Indian Territory and Texas, Dr. G. H. Horn, the 

 well-known coleopterist, writes me as follows : " West of the Mississippi 

 I have it from Texas. I have never seen it from Mexico nor west of the 

 Eocky Mountains. If it goes west, I believe it will be through New 

 Mexico and Arizona, and not over the Eocky Mountains." 



Lieutenant Carpenter, U. S. A., writes me : "I have never seen the 

 Colorado potato-beetle north of the North Platte as far west as Fort 

 Laramie, Fort Fetterraan, and Big Horn Mountains." Probably co-ex- 

 tensive with the original distribution of the Colorado i^otato-beetle, is 

 that of its original food-plant, concerning which Mr. Sereno Watson^ 

 the botanist of the United States Geological Survey of the one hundredth 

 parallel, thus writes me : " The iSolanum rostratum ranges from Texas 

 and New Mexico to the Upi)er Missouri eastward of the mountains. I 

 have no evidence of its being found at all west of the Eocky Mountains, 

 and, indeed, the order appears to be almost wholly wanting throughout 

 the entire Great Basin." 



In Colorado, in 1875, I first met with this beetle at Lawrence, 

 Kans., when Professor Snow told me it was chiefly confined to the 

 ^olanuyn rostratum, a road-side weed, which is now very abundant in 

 Kansas and draws off the beetle from the potato, which consequently 

 suffers comparatively little from its attacks in that State. 



Professor Snow further writes me that for five or six years past, since 

 taking up his residence in Kansas, " it has never done any damage worth 

 mentioning, always preferring its original food-plant (which abounds 

 here as a roadside weed) to the potato. I did not see it in Manitou, 

 Colo., this summer (187G). 

 4Gg s 



