TACKAKu.] ENEMIES OF THE COLOEADO POTATO-BEETLE. 727 



Although no species of tliis family are known to be poisonous, yet it 

 is ])robably true, from the facts adduced by Eiley and others, that the 

 fumes arising- from the bodies of a large number of them when killed by 

 hot water i)roduces sickness. This is due, perhaps, to a volatile poison 

 thrown off from their body immediately after death; but since fowl feed 

 upon them to a large extent, and as no one has been known to have been. 

 l)oisoned, at least severely, in handling them, there is no reason why 

 hand-picking should not be resorted to. 



Enemiea of the Colorado jjotato-beetle. — Besides a number of bugs and 

 beetles which devour this beetle, a species of Lydella {L. dory2)horce 

 Iviley, Fig. 12) is very destructive to it. 

 Mr. Eiley says, " this fly destroyed fully 

 10 per cent, of the second brood and oO 

 per cent, of the third brood of ])otato- 

 beetles that were in my garden. It bears 

 a very close resemblance, both in color 

 and size, to the common house-fly, but 

 is readily distinguished from the latter 

 by its extremely brilliant silver-white 

 face." Xo ichneumon parasite has yet 

 been found preying upon it. In the West- 

 ern States turkeys, hens, and chickens, 

 and other birds destroy numbers of the 

 grubs and beetles, and render most effi- Fig. 12.— Tacliina parasite (Li/dcUa 

 cieut aid. J. YT. Perry, esq., of Salem, cloryphora') of the Y^ot^to-heetla. 

 Mass., tells me that he saw a Baltimore oriole and a " small yellow-bird " 

 fly down and eat the grubs. 



Egg. — The eggs are oval-cylindrical, bright yellow, 0.08 inch long, and laid in clus- 

 ters side by side, to the number of thirty or forty, on the under side of the leaves. 



Larva. — The larva molts three times, four distinct stages occi^rriug with the eggs 

 and beetles in July, either in Colorado or Massacbusetts. When first hatched it is 

 deep blood-red, with the head and prothoras dark brown, and with two rows of black 

 spots on the side, the upper row the larger. (In one case the head and prothorax was 

 concolorous with the body, and there was only one row of lateral spots, as in the larva 

 of L. jiincta). Length, 0.10-0.12. After the first. molt it measures 0.17-0.20 inch, and 

 has the same appearance. After the third molt it becomes paler yellowish, and meas- 

 ures 0.25-0.85 inch in length. At this time the body more distinctly than before is seen 

 to be much thicker behind the feet, nearly as thick as broad, while the abdomen is 

 suddenly pointed. The mature larva, when of full size, measures about half an inch 

 (0.40-0.50) in length and is yellow, with the head black, the prothorax yellowish but 

 dark on the hinder edge ; two rows of black spots on the side of the abdomen, the two 

 terminal segments of which are dark above, while just behind the head are four small 

 black dots ; the legs are black. It matures in about seventeen days after hatching. On 

 comparing about fifty alcoholic specimens in all four stages, from Salem, Mass., taken in 

 July, with the same number collected in Golden, Colo., July 3, I see no ditiVrence, unless 

 the latter set are a trille paler in hue ; but some of the Massachusetts examples are as 

 pale as those from Colorailo. 



Beetle. — Hemispherical, thick-bodied, with prothorax a little narrower than the rest 

 of the body. Yellow ; head yellow, sometimes black at the base, with a heart-shaped 

 black spot in the middle; two short diverging black lines in the middle of the pro- 

 thorax, with .smaller lateral dots. Wing-covers with four broad black lines, and the 

 edge of the wing cover lined with black, making ten lines in all. Under side of the 

 abdomen with finir rows of black spots. Legs of a reddish tinge, with the ends of the 

 joints dark; tarsal joints dark. Length about half an inch (0.40-0.50).* 



* Though this species was referred to Dorjiphora by Say, and has been retained in 

 this genus by most subsequent authors, it more properly belongs to Ltptinotarsa. The 

 three species of Loryphora in the museum of the Pcabody Academy of Science, Salem 

 (i. e., Boryp'hora stjianli Ger., from Brazil, D.cataiiilafa Oliv., from Para, and D. sutumlis 

 Fabr., from Eio de Janeiro), have a much stouter and thicker body, with a large spine 

 between the anterior pair of legs. In Lepliitofarm the spine is entirely absent, and our 

 species (together with L. cra-spiena Kl., from Chiapas, Mexico) are*apparently more 

 closely related to the common Lahidomera trimaculata than to the species of Do>i/j)7(ora, 



