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70 
If these insects are knocked off the vines in the middle of a very 
hot and dry day, the mercury in the thermometer ranging at 95o 
or upward, they will die in about one minute, as I have tested by 
actual experiment. The soft-bodied larvae roll over and over and 
seem to almost liquify from the heat. The beetles spread their 
wings and attempt to escape, but cannot rise from the broiling 
surface. Two of my fellow travelers on the ad interim Commit¬ 
tee, Mr. Galusha and Mr. Wier, both certify, from their own expe¬ 
rience, to the efficacy of this method when the conditions are 
favorable. The former adds that it is most effective where the 
potatoes have been hilled up, so as to present an inclined plane of 
crumbling earth, up which the insects must climb, under the 
fierce fire of the enemy, before they can reach the protecting 
shelter of the over-spreading foliage. The objection to the prac¬ 
tice of this plan is that the operator has to expose himself to the 
same heat which is fatal to the insects, and besides, there are usu¬ 
ally but few days in the year when this remedy is available. 
Another agency for lessening the numbers of the Potato-beetle 
is starvation. This takes place from the simple fact that the in¬ 
sects, in some cases, eat all the potatoes and other available food 
within their reach, whilst many of them are immature, and before 
the season is far enough advanced for them to go into winter quar¬ 
ters. I have been forcibly struck the present season with the ef¬ 
ficacy of this condition of things in my own neighborhood, and 
it must have occurred in many other localities. I have seen my. 
riads of these insects, in all their stages, leaving the potato-fields, 
where they had left scarcely a stump standing, and traveling over 
fences, buildings and roads, and I may say everywhere, but where 
there was no congenial plant food within their reach. The per¬ 
fect insect, it is true, can fly to a considerable distance, but the 
supply of food sometimes gives out when the great majoritv of the 
insects are in their larva state. I have heard of their being seen 
crawling half a mile cr more from any place where potatoes grew : 
this, however, I think must have referred to the mature beetles, 
which had availed themselves of their wings for a part of the dis¬ 
tance. An important question arises in such cases, whether these 
insects are capable of subsisting upon other plants besides the po¬ 
tato, to a sufficient extent to preserve them from starvation. It is 
