27 
4 
NUTT ALL'S BLISTER BEETLE. 
( Cantharis nuttalli Say. ) 
This species has several times })een noted as injuring beets. The 
beetle (tig. 22) is large and beautiful, usually of a bright metallic 
green, the head and thorax having a coppery luster, the wing-covers 
often purple. Its habitat extends from the Mississippi region to the 
Rocky Mountains and from Canada to Nebraska. ^ 
Notes on the habits of this and several other species which have 
been considered are published in Bulletin No. 40 (new series) of the 
Division of Entomology (pp. 114-116). 
REMEDIES. 
Paris green is one of the best remedies for blister beetles when they 
occur on beets, potatoes, and most other crops. It may be applied 
dry, mixed with 10 to 20 parts of flour, plaster, 
or air-slaked lime, or in the form of a spray, 
also mixed with lime or Bordeaux mixture, at 
the rate of a quarter of a pound of the poison 
to 40 gallons of the diluent. Repeated applica- 
tions are sometimes necessary, since the poi- 
soned beetles are replaced by others. 
Owing to the rapidity with which many spe- 
cies work, frequently in swarms of thousands, 
poisons are of little value. We must, there- 
fore, resort to mechanical measures for their 
destruction, and in the employment of these 
promptness and thoroughness are the essentials. 
A remedy which is employed with success in the 
Western States consists in sending a line of men 
and boys through infested fields to drive the 
beetles before them until they alight on a windrow of hay, straw, or 
other dry vegetable material which has previously been prepared along 
the leeward side of the field. When the beetles have taken refuge in 
such a windrow, it is fired and the beetles are burned. The beetles 
may be destroj^ed by sweeping them into a net, such as is used by 
insect collectors, and throwing the captured insects into a fire; or 
by beating them into large pans of water on which there is a thin scum 
of coal oil. The latter remedy is successful over small areas. 
After what has been said concerning the voracity of these beetles it 
is almost superfluous to add that whatever remedy is employed should 
be applied at the outset of attack in order to be of substantial value. 
Fig. 22.— Cantharis nuttalli: fe- 
male beetle, one-third larger 
than natural size (author's 
illustration, Division of Ea- 
tomology) . 
« Yearbook U. S. Dept. Agr. for 1898, pp. 250-251. 
