138 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



of Diplotaxis was also present in small numbers. The plums and 

 apricots near an old melon patch where the Diabrotica had bred 

 were soon stripped of foliage and the insects spread over nearly 

 the entire orchard. Another species of the same genus, D. h a r - 

 peri Blanch., was reported May 24, 1894/ as injuring straw- 

 berry plants at Campbellsburg Ind. The account states that they 

 attacked the smaller and weaker plants on a 2| acre field and 

 very quickly destroyed them. As many as 20 beetles or over were 

 found at a time on a single plant. The insects appeared first in 

 some wheat and when that became too tough migrated to the 

 recently set strawberry field. The soil was a light, clayey loam 

 and paris green was applied but without benefit. 



These little scarabaeids are difficult insects to control and in a 

 general way may be classed in this respect with the closely related 

 and well known May or June beetles, Lachnosterna, and 

 rose beetles, Macrodactylus subspinosus Fabr. Any- 

 thing that tends to make the foliage distasteful to the insects, 

 such as dusting with air-slacked lime, wood ashes, etc. has some 

 protective value, but comparatively little benefit results from 

 spraying with an arsenical poison. It is possible that collecting 

 the insects by jarring into a curculio catcher might prove of 

 some value. This would have to be done in the evening when 

 the beetles are on the trees, and in all probability it would 

 require considerable shaking to dislodge them. The injury to 

 the foliage late in the fall is of comparatively little importance 

 compared with depredations in the spring, and apparently there 

 is a prospect of this species causing some injury at that time, 

 in which event it would pay to go to considerable expense in 

 collecting the beetles or employing some other means to destroy 

 them, so as to prevent severe injury to the trees by the destruc- 

 tion of fruit and leaf buds early in the season. 



Appletree tent caterpillar (Malacosoma americana 

 Fabr.) . This insect is more or less injurious each year, and during 

 the present season has not been very destructive, though some- 

 what abundant in various localities, specially where no effort has 

 been made to control it. The injury, as a rule, has been less than 



*Davis. Insect Life, 7:199 



