PACKAKD.] THE COLORADO POTATO-BEETLE. 723 



to the "extreme eastern limit" of that State. It was reported in the 

 same year to have been seen in the District of Columbia, according to the 

 Monthly Report of the Department of Agriculture for August and Sep- 

 tember, 1S73. 



During the summer of 187G it was observed by Prof. H. W. Parker 

 in great abundance at Long Branch, being thrown up in windrows 

 on the beach. The two following extracts from the daily papers also 

 show how abundant it has been on Long Island and in Connecticut : 



It is said that the potato-bugs on Long Island are very numerous and have ah'eady 

 made sad havoc with the early crops. Mr. Jacob Schoemakei-, a farmer at Flatbusb, 

 has had about $"2,000 worth of early sprouts destroyed, and the farmers in that section, 

 in plowing up their grounds, discovered bushels of the bugs. — (Forest and Stream, April 

 27, 187U.) 



Colorado potato-bugs have been washed ashore at Milestone and other places in Con- 

 necticut in such nnmljors of hite as to poison the air. The captain of a New London 

 vessel says that they came on board in such swarms while at sea that they had to close 

 the hatches. 



In 1874 It became well established in Connecticut, New Jersey, New 

 York,* Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, (lliley's 

 Seventh Eeport.) In the summer of 187-4 it appeared at Williamstown, 

 Mass., in small numbers, as I am told by Mr. J. S. Kingsley. In 1875 

 they were commonly seen, especially on the railroad-track, before July 9. 



Concerning its habits in Connecticut, Mr. J. H. Pillsbury writes me as 

 follows from Middlebury, September 2G, 187G : 



I took from the sides of a glass jar, in which I had confined a number of beetles of 

 Doryphora decemlineata, a few eggs, which had been laid May 30, and placed them iu 

 circumstances for hatching them. The eggs hatched June 6, and the larvai were placed 

 upon fresh leaves of the potato. They immediately commenced eatiug, and continued 

 almost without ceasing during ihe day, until June 22, when all but one entered the 

 earth that had been provided for them to pupali in. The remaining larva entered the 

 earth tiie nest day. 



Two of the beetles appeared July 1, and more the next day. Upon examining the 

 earth I found one pupa with the wings only slightlj' developed, and this one did not 

 mature. As soon as the beetles were out they were fed with potato-leaves, and re- 

 sumed their eating as if determined to make up lost time. The first eggs laid by these 

 beetles were fouud July 7. The whole time, therefore, from the one brood of eggs to 

 another is only thirty-eight days, twenty-two of which were spent iu actively devouring 

 the plant on which it feeds. If we suppose the female to continue to deposit her eggs for 

 forty days, as Professor Packard states, sixty-two days of the seventy-eight which the 

 insect lives are spent in vigorous destruction of its favorite plant, the liotato. These 

 observations also indicate the probability of three broods from the earliest of each 

 season before the middle of September, up to which time the insect has been found on 

 the potato iu our section. 



J. H. PILLSBURY. 



MiDDLETOWN, CoNN., September 2C, 1876. 



Its first appearance in the center of the State was in Belchertown, 

 where, I am informed by Mr. L. W. Goodell, '' a single larva was found 

 July 15, and was apparently the last one of a brood, as several hills of 

 potatoes near were entirely denuded of foliage, and I could find no 

 others nor signs of any in that or other fields of potatoes in the vicinity^ 

 although I searched carefully. The one taken was placed in a box of 

 earth and immediately buried itself, and was transformed to a beetle 

 eleven days thereafter. About this time I found and killed some fifty 

 of the beetles on the same potato-patch, which were probably a part of 

 the same brood. No more of the larvte were seen for about three weeks, 

 when they made their appearance in large numbers in several fields." 

 When I visited these fields during the last of September, thousands of 

 the larvae, in difl'erent stages of growth, were to be seen on the vines. 



* At Norwich, N. Y., Mr. J. S. Kingsley first found the larv.-p in July, 1874, and they 

 were much more abundant the year following. Ho fouud them in al)undauce iu 1875^ 

 in Binghamton and Owego. 



