1362 



FAMILY LXIV. MELOID/E. 



Throughout the State; common, but apparently much less so 

 than a score of years ago. June 11- July 20. The best known of 

 the old-fashioned potato bugs, ' ' or blister beetles. Feeds on toma- 

 toes, potatoes and various weeds in low grounds. The writer's 

 father, H. S. Blatchley, of Bainbridge, Indiana, always raised a 

 great many potatoes, which each season were more or less damaged 

 by these beetles. On one occasion, after sprinkling with London 

 purple and trampling and mashing five bushels, more or less, of the 

 beetles into the ground, he wrote of his experience as follows : " On 

 the next day, for every one that had been killed a dozen had come 

 to their funerals. A dashing rain having washed the poison from 

 the vines, the bugs went for them again and not until after they 

 had devoured the last leaf and sucked the juice from the stalks 

 did they leave for greener pastures. I have heard some people hint 

 m a sly kind of way, as though they were fearful of offending some 

 august personage, that these blister beetles were the devil's own. 

 This I have come to believe, and 



"It's my firm conviction and it makes me free to say 



That we're indebted for their visits to 'Old Scratch.' 



I judge from observation that from every egg they lay 

 A dozen little blister beetles hatch. 



If ever they should visit you, you'll find they've come to stay, 



And there's nothing that their greediness can match. 

 If you undertake to hustle 'em it's 'possum they will play. 



And a bushel in a minute you can catch. 

 The devil take his tater bugs, if I could have my way. 



I'd tumble into Tophet the whole batch. 

 If such a blistering avalanche old Satan should dismay, 



He probably would hump himself and scratch." 



2526 (8097). Epicauta cixekea Forst, Nov. Spec- 

 Ins., 1771, 62. 

 Elongate, rather robust. Black, uniformly 

 clothed with gray pubescence. Head and thorax 

 densely and finely punctured. Elytra finely granu- 

 late-punctate. Length 10-17 mm. (Fig. 593.) 



Vigo County; scarce. September 22. 

 Known as the "gray blister beetle." 



2527 ( 



-) 



Epicauta maeginata Fab., Syst. Ent., 

 1775, 260. 



Elongate, robust. Black ; head and sides of tho- 

 rax densely clothed with gray pubescence, the lat- 

 ter with a large triangular discal space black, this 

 divided by a gray median impressed line. Color of 

 elytra given in key. Sculpture of upper surface as in cinerea. Length 12- 

 17 mm. (Fig. 591.) 



Fig. 593. (After Chittenden in 

 Bull. 43, U. S. Div. Ent.) 



