THE CHEERY LEAF-BEETLE. 19 



A PREDATORY ENEMY. 



In the leaf mold at the base of wild cherry trees, in which cherry leaf- 

 beetles were transforming in great numbers, small carabid beetles with 

 a striking color pattern of black and yellow were also abundant. These 

 beetles were determined by Mr. E. A. Schwarz to be a large form of 

 Lebia ornata Say. (Fig. 9.) In confinement these carabids would 

 eat pupse and callow adults voraciously. In attacking an adult 

 Galerucella the carabid would tear off one elytron and then eat the 

 soft body tissues. In confinement one Lebia kiUed four callow Gale- 

 rucella adults in one night; only one was eaten, but the others aU 

 had the wings on one side torn off and were more or less mutilated 

 otherwise. When pupse were killed nothing was 

 left but the pupal skin. 



Several other carabids were found in places where 

 the cherry leaf -beetle transforms, but none was 

 found feeding upon it, nor could any of them be in- 

 duced to do so in confinement. 



CONTROL. 



PREVIOUS RECOMMENDATIONS. 



There is no indication from entomological litera- 'pred^orVtnemr'o^ 

 ture that any experiments to control this beetle the cherry leaf-beetie. 

 have been conducted previous to 1915. Pettit ^oZtJ)^^'^'^' 

 (1898), Chittenden (1899), and O'Kane (1914) have 

 recommended the use of Paris green and other arsenicals, doubtless 

 basing their recommendations on their knowledge of related insects. 

 Pettit (1898) recommended also the use of soap solution and kerosene 

 emulsion, if spraying must be done on the trees when fruit is ripening. 



EXPERIMENTS IN 1915. 



When the cherry leaf-beetle appeared in the vicinity of North 

 East, experimental spraying against the grape-berry moth was in 

 progress at this station. Consequently no experimental work to 

 control the beetle was undertaken until four days later, when the 

 work in hand was finished. The effectiveness of poisoned sprays in 

 these experiments was lessened somewhat by the fact that the beetles 

 were feeding less heavily at the time of the application than they 

 had been immediately after their arrival in this region. 



All spraying experiments made against beetles of the spring migra- 

 tion were in two small orchards belonging to the late J. L. Spofford 

 and M. D. Phillips, except some small cage experiments which 

 were conducted in the insectary yard. These two orchards adjoined 

 each other and were alike in so many ways that they were treated as 



