310 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 
fly had vanished like smoke from the earth after 
leaving his evil seed in it. 
The beetle feeds on the leaves of solanaceous 
plants and prefers the potato above all others, so 
that when he comes in a slow-flying swarm over 
the potato-field, you see the beetles dropping in 
thousands like a grey rain upon it, and know that 
before the sun sets the whole of the leaves will be 
devoured, the stalks being left till the following day, 
when he will eat them pretty well down to the 
ground before passing on to attack the tomatoes, 
Attempts were sometimes made to drive them off 
by lighting smoky fires of half-dried weeds round 
the potato-patch, but never once did we succeed in 
saving the plants. 
* As a small boy I was naturally incapable of 
entering into the bitter feelings of our elders with 
regard to the blister-beetle. Its appearance excited 
me and had the exhilarating effect produced by any 
and every display of life on a great scale. At the 
same time I hated it, not because it devoured the 
potato-plants, but for the reason that I had been 
feelingly persuaded of its power to produce blisters. 
I was out running about in the sunshine all day, 
and the air being full of beetles, they were always 
dropping upon me and had to be brushed or shaken 
off my straw hat, my jacket and trousers and boots 
continually; but from time to time one would get 
into my shoe or slip down my neck or creep up my 
sleeve to get broken on the skin, and in due time a 
pain would set in just at that spot; then on pulling 
