77 



stance of the leaf, rather than to the feeding of the beetles on the 

 leaves. 

 The nature of the damage effected by this Insect is well illustrated 



in an article which appeared in Volume III of the American Ento- 

 mologist (pp. 59-61) by V. T. Chambers. Injury by this species is 



stated to have been rather general in northern Kentucky. "By the 

 1st of August the groves look as if a fire had swept over them: and on 

 examining the leaves in many grove- almost every leaflet will be found 

 to contain a 'mine.' as the burrow of the larva is technically called, 

 and many of them will contain three or four, while the imago or 

 mature insect of Hispa suturalis will be found in great numbers feed- 

 ing externally on the leave-." 



About half of the injury was attributed to the leaf-mining locust 

 beetle, the remainder to other species of leaf-miner-. 



The bibliography of this species has been brought together up to 

 1896 in Dr. Lintner's Twelfth Report on the Insects of the State of 

 New York for that year (pp. 264, 265), and the subject need not be 

 entered into here in detail. It should be mentioned, however, that 

 the ravages of this species had assumed sufficient proportions in West 

 Virginia to call for special investigations on the part of Dr. A. D. 

 Hopkins, these studies having been begun in 1890, the results being pub- 

 lished in a short article in Bulletin No. 16 <p. 87). In the Canadian 

 Entomologist for 1896 (p. 248) the same writer mentions the destrue- 

 tiveness of this >pecie.- in West Virginia, adding some new food plant-, 

 and in Bulletin No. ( .>. n. -. (p. 20), the junior author called attention 

 for the first time to the fact that this species fed also upon herbaceous 

 plants, and that the larvae develop in the leaves of soy bean. Other 

 accounts, which appeared with and since the year 1896, contain little 

 more than mention by State entomologists of ravage- made by this 

 insect in their respective States, all of which have been briefly brought 

 together in the introductory chapter on this species. Exception- are 

 Dr. Lintner's article previously cited and a column article by Prof. E. D. 

 Sanderson on page 672 of American Gardening for September 30, I ■ 



FOOD PLANTS. 



This species form- a rather interesting example of an insect with a 

 well-known favorite food plant, which will also feed, even in time- 

 when thi- plant is available, on aumerous other form- oi vegetation, 

 both related and otherwise. 



The prime, and no doubt the original, food of the larva and beetle i-. 

 of course, common Locust I Robiniajm >iihi<->i<^i) % but there is no doubt 

 that larvae could develop equally well in the leave- kA other species of 

 the same genu-, and perhaps of most other trees o( the same family. 

 On the grounds of the Department oi Agriculture at Washington the 



