The Biology of Maine Species of Altica. 201 



Number of eggs deposited by one female. The writer has 

 no very trustworthy data as to the number of eggs which one 

 female is able to deposit, for the beetles do not thrive in the 

 laboratory. No individual which he has isolated has deposited 

 more than 25 eggs, but this is doubtless far below the normal 

 capacity. The writer would guess that the normal would ap- 

 proximate that of the elm flea-beetle (about 200), rather than 

 that of the more prolific dogwood flea-beetle (about 600). 



Food Plants. 



Natural food plants. The only plant on which the writer 

 has ever taken this species in the field is the low blueberry, 

 Vaccinium pennsylvanicum Lam. Neither the adults nor larvae 

 will eat the closely related velvet-leaf blueberry, V. canadense 

 Kalm. A number of laboratory tests to determine the possible 

 range of food plants is recorded below. 



FOOD PLANTS OF THE ADULT BLUEBERRY FLEA-BEETLE.* 



(i) Eaten readily. 



Low blueberry. 



(ii) Eaten indifferently. 

 Red oak. 



(iii) Refused. 



Corn, cultivated willow, heart-leaved willow, aspen, bar 

 sam poplar, cotton-wood, sweet fern, hazel, gray birch 

 alder, red elm, white elm, syringa, smooth gooseberry 

 European gooseberry, 'red currant, cultivated spiraea 

 apple, mountain ash, shad bush, wild strawberry, cultivated 

 strawberry, wild rose, cultivated rose, Japanese rose, choke 

 cherry, wild red cherry, wild plum (!), cultivated plum, 

 bean, sugar maple, woodbine, basswood, fireweed, marsh 

 fireweed, evening primrose, red osier dogwood, panicled 

 dogwood, bunchberry, sheep laurel, velvet-leaf blueberry 

 (!), lilac, tomato, Joe Pye weed. 



FOOD PLANTS OF THE LARVA OF THE BLUEBERRY FLEA-BEETLE. 



(i) Eaten readily. 



Low blueberry, 

 (ii) Eaten indifferently. 



Red oak, wild plum, 

 (iii) Refused. 



*For the scientific names of the plants used in these tests see page 

 171. 



