RErORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



309 



first named. The cayenne pepper, if eaten to any extent, is actually poisonous to it, as 

 we learn from Dr. Le Barou. 



tTader these circumstances it is an interesting fact (as showing how a new habit 

 may be acquired under favorable circumstances) that last summer this innect was 

 positively found feeding upon the cabbage, which is botanieally so very distinct from 

 the nightshade family. It would be^sad indeed if so all-important an esculent should 

 iu the future be doomed to suffer, with the potato, from the insatiate appetite of such 

 a pest, and I have no idea that cabbage-raisers need fear anythiug of the sort. Yet 

 stranger things have happened, and certain it is that it was found devouring cabbages 

 by Mr. H. II. McAllee, superintendent of the Wisconsin University Experimental 

 Farm, while Miss Mary E. Murtfeldt, of Kirk wood, in whose testimony I can place 

 the utmost reliance, found that in parts of Northern Illinois it did considerable injury 

 to giowing cabbages and was even breeding in great numbers upon them. 



THE HARLEQUIN CABBAGE-BUG. 

 (Murgantia Mstrionica, Hahn.) 

 Order Heteroptera; Family Scutellerid^. 

 [Plate IV ; Fig. 2.] 



PAST HISTORY. 



In our Fourth Missouri Entomological Report (1871) we published an 

 article upon this insect, from which the quoted passages in the follow- 

 ing account are taken: 



" Prior to the year 1870 the insect which forms the subject of this 

 sketch was not known to occur in Missouri. It has of late years been 

 gradually traveling towards us from the more southern States, and has 

 already made its presence a little too manifest in some of our southern 

 counties, and in Kansas I have met with it at a latitude higher than 

 Saint Louis. It extends to Guatemala, and is found in Mexico; and 

 it varies very much, as most species are found to do when their geo- 

 graphical distribution is studied. As it extends southward we find the 

 dark colors predominating, and becoming more intensified and brilliant, 

 and Stal has described a species {Murgantia munda) from Mexico, which 

 is doubtless but a geographical race, since all the intermediate grades 

 occur between it and the more northern form of histrionica. My Iriend 

 Mr. P. R. Uhler has made some interesting experiments on the species, 

 which have clearly proven that when reared in the dark the pale-red 

 parts predominate; while if reared in the bright daylight the dark-blue 

 colors predominate." 



Spreading with great rapidity since the foregoing remarks were made, 

 the Harlequin bug, or u Calico back," as it is called in some sections, 

 reached as far north as Delaware in 1876, and is now found all over the 

 Southern States. During the last three or four years it has quite seri- 

 iously damaged the cabbage crop in limited localities in Maryland and 

 farther south. 



"The Harlequin Cabbage-bug derives its name from the gay, theat- 

 rical, harlequin-like manner in which the black and orange-yellow colors 

 are arranged upon its body. The first account of the operations of this 

 very pretty but uufortunately very mischievous bug appeared in the 

 year 1806, from the able pen of Dr. Gideon Liucecum, of Washington 

 County, Texas, and was printed in the Practical Entomologist (Vol. I, 

 p. 110). His remarks are to the following effect: 



"'The year before last they got into my garden and utterly de- 

 stroyed my cabbage, radishes, mustard, seed- turnips, and every other cru- 



