POTATO FLKA-BKETLE. 39 



E. iiigrifula Dejean, olim. 



E. piihcsccns, in part, Illiger's Mag. VT. 58, 1807. 



E. scniimihnn Le Conte. Proc. Ac. Phil. 358. i86t. 



Though the aduU insect has long been known to entomologists 

 it. is only within the last few years that ,we have learned that 

 the larvae live in the ground feeding on the roots and tubers of 

 the potato and perhaps on related plants. It is true that both 

 Fitch and Riley state 1 more than 40 years ago that the larva 

 is a leaf miner but it seems that their statements are based upon 

 inference rather than upon actual observations. 



Fitch in his Eleventh Report (page 62) says in his discussion 

 of the potato flea-beetle "Having given a full account of 

 the larvae and transformations of this genus in connection 

 with the striped flea-beetle (Haltica striolata), it is unnec- 

 essary to repeat the same details here." The larva of the 

 striped flea-beetle mines in the leaves of turnips, beets and 

 other plants of the garden according to Fitch's account, and 

 from his statement in the preceding sentence we are led to 

 infer that the larva of Bpitrix cucumeris also is a leaf miner. 

 There is however nothing in his account in which he states 

 that he actually found the larvae of the potato flea-beetle and 

 we must therefore assume that it was merely a guess on his 

 part. 



Riley in his First Annual Report as State Entomologist of 

 Missouri Cp. loi. i86c)) writes: 



" The larva feeds, internally upon the substance of the 



leaf, like that of the closely-allied European Flea-beetle of the turnip 

 {Haltica nemontm) ; and, from its near relationship to that insect, we 

 may infer that it goes underground to assume the pupa state, that it 

 passes through all its stages in about a month, and that there are two 

 or three broods of them in the course of the same season.'' 



Though it is definitely stated here that the larva mines in 

 the leaves there is nothing so far as I have been able to dis- 

 cover in Riley's writings showing that this is based on personal 

 observations. A number of entomologists since then have 

 made similar statements but all of their accounts bear evidence 

 of having been copied from the writings of the earlier authors. 



Another error, apparently also inherited from the earlier 

 writers, frequently found in the published accounts of these 

 beetles, is the unqualified statement that there are 2 or 3 gen- 

 erations a vear. Tn Maine there is but one generation or at 



