-+ 



128 COLEOPTERA. 



lowish ; so that it may still bear the name given to it in my 

 Catalogue. It is only one sixteenth of an inch long, of a 

 black color, with clay-yellow antennas and legs, except the 

 hindmost thighs, which are brown. The upper side of the 

 body is covered with punctures, which are arranged in rows 

 on the wing-cases ; and there is a deep transverse furrow 

 across the hinder ~part of the thorax. During the summer, 

 these pernicious flea-beetles may be found, not only on cu- 

 cumber-vines, but on various other plants having fleshy and 

 succulent leaves, such as beans, beets, the tomato, and the 

 potato. They injure all these plants, more or less, according 

 to their numbers, by nibbling little holes in the leaves with 

 their teeth ; the functions of the leaves being thereby im- 

 paired in proportion to the extent of surface and amount of 

 substance destroyed. The edges of the bitten parts become 

 brown and dry by exposure to the air, and assume a rusty 

 appearance. Since the prevalence of the disease commonly 

 called the potato-rot, attention has been particularly directed 

 to various insects that live upon the potato-plant ; and, as 

 these flea-beetles have been found upon it in great numbers, 

 in some parts of the country, they have been charged with 

 being the cause of the disease. The same charge has also 

 been made against several other kinds of insects, some of 

 which will be described in the course of this work. In my 

 own opinion, the origin, extension, and continued reappear- 

 ance of this wide-spread pestilence are not due to the depre- 

 dations of insects of any kind. Mr. Phanuel Flanders, of 

 Lowell, where the flea-beetles have appeared in unusual 

 numbers, showed to me, in August, 1851, some potato-leaves 

 that were completely riddled with holes by them, so that 

 but little more than the ribs and veins remained un- 

 touched. He thinks that their ravages may be prevented 

 by watering the leaves with a solution of lime, a remedy 

 long ago employed in England, with signal benefit, in pre- 

 serving the turnip crop from the attacks of the turnip flea- 

 beetle. 



