Colaspis brunnea, Fab. 
[Plate VIII, Fig. 4; IX, Fig. 3 and 4.1 
LITERATURE. 
This species was first described by Fabricius, in 1788, and one of 
its several varieties was described by Say in 1824, under the name 
of Eumolpus jlavidus* under which species name it has most gen¬ 
erally been treated by economic entomologists. Owing to its depre¬ 
dations upon the grape, it has received from Prof. Eiley the ver¬ 
nacular name, the “Grape-vine Colaspis. 
Its iniuries to vegetation were first referred to by Townend Glover, 
who in the Report of the United States Department of Agriculture 
for 1865 page 91, remarks (doubtless referring to this species:) 
“This vear I had a Colaspis very similar to the Colaspis strigosa, 
brought to me in Washington, and said to be very injurious to the 
foliage of the grape-vine, in which the perfect insects eat innumerable 
small holes.” The same fact was brought to the knowledge of Dr 
Fitch in 1866, and in the “Country Gentleman of August 30. for 
that vear he gives a brief account of it in answer to a correspond 
dent who’wrote that it was destroying his grape-vines, en masse. In 
the second volume of the “Practical Entomologist, page 68, Mr. 
Walsh, in the following year, reports _ its occurrence, likewise, in 
Ohio and Illinois, where he found it injurious to the terminal shoots 
and young leaves of the grape. 
In the Third Report of the State Entomologist of Missouri, for 
1871 Prof. Riley treats this species as a grape-leaf pest, figures and 
describes the beetle and the larva, and notes also tne fact that the 
latter devours the roots of strawberries. His description ot the larva 
was drawn from two poor alcoholic specimens; but on page 64 ot 
his report for the following year, having received m the meantime 
numerous examples from strawberry. fields m Southern Illinois, he 
revises the description, giving additional figures of the head and 
mouth parts, and of a ventral segment. _ There is some reason to 
believe, however, that this second description really relates to a 
different species from the first, being probably one ot the two othei 
forms of the root-worms to be discussed hereafter. 
In the third volume of the American Entomologist for 1880, Riley 
reiterates the statements of his third report, and likewise reprints the 
figure of the larva there published. 
Subsequent mention of the species in the thirteenth Report of the 
Ontario Entomological Society, in the Transactions of the Rhn 
State Horticultural Society for 1881, in a work on Insects Injurious 
to Fruits by Mr. Saunders, and in the Transactions of the 
issippi Valley Horticultural Society for 1882, add nothing to oui 
knowledge of this insect or its life history. 
1 
I 
1 
* 
DESCRIPTION. 
Larva .—(Plate IX, Fig. 3, and Fig. 4 A-E). To the* larvj 
characters given on a preceding page, I here add the lol owing 
details: The antennae (Fig. 4, A) are situated just outside 
^Complete Writings, Vol. 1, p. 196. 
