446 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW YORK 
POTATO-BEETLE. ITS VARIETIES. ITS FOOD. REMEDIES. 
edge, and terminate abruptly before they roach the margin. The wings 
are hyaline and smoky. The underside is bright tawny yellowish-red with 
a short black line on each side of the hind breast at the edge of the wing 
covers. The breast and abdomen are minutely punctured and bearded with 
short fine hairs. The thighs are of the same color as the underside of the 
body, and are furnished with a few scattered hairs. The shanks are also 
yellowish red on their bases and along their inner sides nearly to the tip, 
the rest of their surface being black, and they are clothed with a fine dense 
beard. The feet, too, are black with gray cushions on their soles. They 
are four-jointed, the two first joints being triangular and the third deeply 
divided into two lobes, between which is inserted the fourth joint, which is 
polished, long and slender, thicker towards its end, where it terminates in 
two short sharp-pointed claws. 
Individuals of this species occur, which vary in some points from the 
description now given. The most common variation is in the ground 
color of the wing covers, which is frequently rich orange, only the outer 
margin, including all below the lateral black stripes, being of the ordinary 
pale lemon color. And in these instances there is a tinge of pale green¬ 
ish-yellow along the edges of the black stripes. Though the variation 
now spoken of is very manifest in the living insect, it disappears after 
death, whereby it cannot be discovered in the dull and faded specimens of 
the cabinet. 
But the most important differences occur in the black dots upon the tho¬ 
rax, which present us with the following varieties: 
Variety a, immaculicollis, Chevrolat, having the thorax destitute of any 
traces of the two black dots. 
Variety b, unipunctala, having one of the thoracic dots present and the 
other wholly obliterated. 
Variety c, tripunctata, having an additional black dot, placed on the mid¬ 
dle of the thorax in a line with the other two. 
Of these varieties the first is rather common and the other two quite 
rare. 
These beetles are not limited to the potato, but are eqnally common upon 
the stramonium and some of our other plants pertaining to the Natural 
Order Soi.anace^e. Their yellow color and the three black stripes on their 
wing covers give them a marked resemblance to the well known Cucumber- 
beetle described in the preceding pages, which, however, is of a smaller 
size and has the head black, whereby it is easily distinguished from this 
its yellow-headed neighbor. 
Although these beetles are more or less common every year in the potato 
fields throughout the United States, we have never heard of an instance 
where they have been multiplied to such an extent as to be severely inju¬ 
rious to the crop. If they should anywhere occur in such force as to be 
intolerably detrimental, their numbers may be readily diminished by pass¬ 
ing along the rows of the potato vines and breaking off each leaf or leafless 
stalk on which a cluster of the worms is present, dropping it into the fur¬ 
row in a spot where the ground is firm and hard, and drawing the sole of 
the boot over it, hereby crushing and destroying the filthy creatures. Dr. 
