n 
[331] 
a curious fact that these ravenous insects seem to be exclusively 
appropriated to the natural tamily ot SolctudcecB or the Night¬ 
shade family, upon all the species ot which they will teed to some 
extent. 
This family includes, in addition to the Potato, the Tomato the 
Egg-plant, the Bitter-sweet, the Black Night shade, the Horse- 
nettle, the Ground-cherry, the Thorn-apple, the Henbane, the 
Tobacco, wild and cultivated, the Box-thorn, and the Cayenne Pep¬ 
per. Upon two of these plants, the Egg-plant and the Horse- 
nettle, these insects feed as readily as they do upon the potato, 
but upon all or most of the others they eat sparingly and only 
from necessity. We sometimes hear of them eating other plants, 
and I have seen the Thistle and other plants slightly gnawed by 
them when on their march for more congenial food, but it is only 
as an act of desperation. The Thorn-apple, or Apple of Peru, 
they will eat more freely, but they do not like it ; and the Cay¬ 
enne Pepper, if eaten to any considerable extent, is fatal to them. 
Mr. Ellsworth, jr. , of the Naperville nursery, informed me that 
he had several times found the bugs lying dead under the pepper 
plants upon which they had been feeding. Now it is evident that 
all the plants above enumerated are too rare in locality, and too 
small in quantity to afford subsistence, to any considerable extent, 
to such a prolific and multitudinous species as the Colorado Po¬ 
tato-beetle; and there can be no doubt that in such a season as 
the present, in many localities, millions ot these insects must have 
perished for want of food. &nd though there will probably be 
enough left to continue the breed, yet they will be so much re¬ 
duced in numbers that their presence will hardly be noticed for 
years to come. And, besides, in proportion, as their numbers are 
reduced, they will become subject to the depredations of preda¬ 
ceous and parasitic foes. 
In such ways as these does Nature come to our relief from the 
indefinite encroachment of the many noxious insects to whose de¬ 
predations we are exposed, and says to the advancing tide, with 
more authority than did Canute, of old: “ Thus far shalt thou 
come, and no farther. 55 
I think there is no doubt that we could avail ourselves of the 
starvation process to exterminate the Colorado Potato beetle, if 
this insect should prove to be of a sufficiently persistent character 
I 
