24 



THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



all beetles have full-sized wings snugly folded 

 lip under their wing-cases, and, whenever they 

 choose it, can fly with the greatest ease. This 

 is the case with the four kinds of beetles infest- 

 ing the potato, whose habits we are now about 

 to relate. As these four species all agree with 

 one another in living under ground and feeding 

 upon various roots, during the lai-va state, and 

 in emerging to attack the foliage of the potato, 

 only when in the course of the summer they 

 have passed into the perfect or beetle state ; it 

 will be quite unnecessary to repeat this statement 

 under the head of each of the four. In fact, the 

 four are so closely allied, that they all belong to 

 the same family of beetles, the blister-beetles 

 (Lytta family) — to wMch also the common im- 

 ported Spanish-fly or blister-beetle of the drug- 

 gists appertains — and all of them will raise just 

 as good a blister as that does, and are equally 

 poisonous when taken internally in large doses. 

 The Striped Blister-beetle (Fig. 

 ' 13) is almost exclusively a southern 

 species, occurriug in particular 

 5'ears very abundantly on the potato 

 vine in Central and Southern Illi- 

 nois, aud also in Missouri, but in 

 North Illinois being usually so rare, 

 that in the course of ten years col- 

 Coiors— Yei- lecting, we have scarcely met with 

 low and black, jjg^jf ^ ^oz%vl specimeus of it there. 

 In 1868, however, it is reported by Mr. Gra- 

 ham Lee, of Mercer county, N. 111., and also by 

 Capt. Beebe, of Galena, N. 111., as occurring in 

 very large numbers upon their potatoes. And, 

 according to Dr. Hanis, it is occasionally found 

 even in New England. In some specimens, the 

 broad outer black stripe on the wing-cases is 

 divided lengthways by a slender yellow line, so 

 that instead of two there are three, black stripes 

 on each wing-case ; aud in the same field we 

 have noticed, on two separate occasions, that all 

 the intermediate gxades between the two vari- 

 eties may be met with ; thus proving that the 

 four-striped individuals do not form a distinct 

 species, as was formerly supposed by the Euro- 

 pean entomologist, Fabricius, but are mere 

 varieties of the same species to which the six- 

 stiiped individuals appertain. In July, 1868, 

 we found the insect very abundant on the potato 

 in Champaign Co., 111., and Mr. Merton Duulap 

 of Chamxjaign told us, that he had succeeded in 

 diiving them with brush off Ms potato-patch on 

 to some old hay which he had prepared to re- 

 ceive them, and then, setting fire to the hay, 

 consumed them bodily. Many such cases may be 

 found recorded in different agricultural journals. 

 Mr. M. S. Hill, of East Liverpool, Oliio, 



states in the Practical Entomologist (vol. I, p. 

 197) , that this species had swarmed on the potato 

 vines in his neighborhood in 1866, and that " the 

 most successful method of destroying them was 

 by placing between the farrows or rows, dry hay 

 or straw, and setting it on fire." " The bugs," 

 he adds, '• were thus nearly all destroyed, and 

 the straw burning very quickly did not injure 

 the vines. Might not this remedy be applied 

 with success in the destruction of your neiv and 

 Mghly -improved Colorado Potato-bug?" Per- 

 haps it might ; but the process would have to be 

 repeated a great many times. For, although 

 there is but one brood of any of these potato- 

 feeding Blister-beetles in a year, and they con- 

 sequently la.st comparatively but a short time 

 upon the vines, yet there are about three suc- 

 cessive generations of the Colorado Potato-bug 

 in one season, and they may often be met with, 

 in some one of their stages, upon the potato 

 plant all through the growing season. As to 

 driving Colorado potato-bugs with brush out of 

 a potato patch, that is entirely out of the ques- 

 tion. The larvse have got no wings, and conse- 

 quently can not fly at all; and even in the 

 hottest time of the day and in the hottest season, 

 the perfect beetles can not be forced to take wing 

 and fiy off, as can be done without much diffi- 

 culty under such circumstances with anj^ of the 

 potato-feeding Blister-beetles. The Colorado 

 bugs can fly, it is true, and they do fly when the 

 sun shines hot upon them ; but they are very 

 independent bugs, and will only fly just when 

 it suits them to do so. 



Mr. S. P. Boardman (" "Wool-grower ") says 

 that he has discovered that this striped Blister- 

 beetle, like the Colorado bug, eats all other 

 potato tops in preference to Peach-blows. (JT. 

 Y. 8em. Tribune, July 13, 1868.) This is cer- 

 tainly a new fact, so far as regards the former 

 species, though it has long been ascertained to 

 be true of the latter. 



CFig. 14.] 



Colors — (a) ash gray; (6) black. 



The Ash-geay Blistek-beetle,* {Lytta dn- 

 erea, Fabr.) — This species (Fig. 14 a, male)is the 



• In the male of this species, but not in the female, the 

 flrst two joints of the antenuie are greatly elongated and 



