REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 303 



some individuals being stationed in the little pits which they have 

 eaten in the thick texture of the leaves, and others down in the axils 

 at the base of the leaf stalks, pertinaciously remain, regardless of any 

 jarring or shaking of the plants, and are only dislodged by crowding 

 them out from their lairs with the point of a knife or other implement. 

 And though the plants be kept well dusted over with ashes, and the 

 beetles repeatedly driven off from them, they immediately return to 

 them again." 



It is the occasional occurrence of a season like this which is the cause 

 of so many contradictory opinions upon the efficacy of this or that par- 

 ticular remedy. But these remedies which have been mentioned have 

 no effect in actually lessening the numbers of the beetles — they simply 

 drive these from one patch to another. Dr. Fitch heartily recommended 

 the keeping of broods of young chickens in the kitchen garden, and de- 

 scribed the activity with which these fowls search for the flea beetles 

 and the avidity with which they devour them. He also advised the 

 domestication of toads in the garden on the testimony of a speaker at 

 the American Institute Farmers' Club, in 1864, who had cut open a toad 

 which he feared was feeding on his bees, and examined its stomach, in 

 which he found "two long, hairy caterpillars, and numerous heads and 

 parts of beetles; but the bulk was made up of a sort of cabbage beetje 

 or Ilea, jet black, of small size, with a hard shell, which I had noticed 

 very abundant on my cabbages and turnips." 



These remedies may of course answer in small gardens, where but a 

 few heads are grown, and will also considerably reduce the damage in 

 larger fields ; but large truck farmers need something better, and we 

 have little doubt but that the Pyrethrum mixture or the infusion will 

 meet the wants of the case. No conclusive experiments have as yet 

 been tried. Miss Murtfeldt, whom we charged to make particular ob- 

 servations and experiments on this insect, has reported gs follows as 

 to Pyrethrum: u Its effect on the Striped Flea-beetle which riddles the 

 young leaves of cabbage, cresses, and other cruciferous plants is rather 

 to drive the beetles off than to kill them. It seldom absolutely kills 

 them, but if thickly applied it produces temporary stupefaction. There 

 are at least two successive broods of this beetle, appearing in greatest 

 numbers during the latter part of May and of July; and if the powder 

 be applied occasionally to plants liable to attack at these seasons, a 

 great deal of injury may be averted." In another place she gives an 

 entry from her diary, as follows: u July 7. Used the powder freely on 

 some plants of sweet alyssum that were being ruined by the Striped 

 Flea-beetle. It did not produce any immediate paralyzing effect, but 

 evidently caused the beetles to 'vacate,' as none of the latter were to 

 be found on or about the plants on the succeeding day." 



The remedy employed by Mr. P. T. Quinn, the well known fruit and 

 vegetable grower, for both this and the Striped Cucumber-beetle is 

 well worthy of mention here. He sprinkles his vines with a liquid made 

 chiefly of soaked tobacco stems and soft soap, and then powders them 

 with lime. 



The following experience of Mr. J. M. Nicholson, of Godkinville, N. 

 0., which we published in the Rural New Yorker for November 3, 1883, is, 

 however, well worthy of being put on record as a most ingenious way ot 

 perpetuating the effect of the solution. Mr. Nicholson writes in a recent 

 letter as follows: U I would mention a simple contrivance which I have 

 made and used with perfect success in exterminating bugs on melon and 

 cucumber vines. 1 took old oyster and fruit cans (tin) and tilled them 

 with a strong decoction of tobacco-stems and water. I poured it on the 



