331 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 
larvae received from Mrs. Freeman in a vessel along with some 
potato leaves ; but, instead of feeding voraciously upon them, as 
the larvae of the true potato bug would certainly have done, they 
only nibbled a few small holes in them about the size of a pin’s 
head, and then in a week’s time died of starvation. This, how¬ 
ever can scarcely be quoted as a decisive experiment, because 
these larvae had fasted for about a day before they reached us, 
owing to the leaves in* which they were packed having dried 
up ; and because no vegetable-feeding animals can stand long 
fasting as well as flesh-feeding animals do. But even if they 
had actually feed upon the potato leaves quite freely in a state 
of confinement, it bv no means follows that the mother beetle 
would deposit her eggs upon the potato in a state of nature, 
and thereby compel her future progeny to feed upon that 
plant. That she will do so upon her natural food-plant, the 
horse neetle, we know ; and, according to Mr. Walter, of Ala¬ 
bama, she will also upon the egg-plant, which is thorny like 
the horse-nettle. But apparently she is naturally indisposed 
to go one step further, and lay her eggs upon a smooth species 
of the same botanical genus, namely, the potato. 
We have experimentally ascertained that neither ducks, 
geese, turkeys nor barn-door fowls will touch the larvae of the 
Colorado bug when it is offered to them ; and there are numer¬ 
ous authentic cases on record where persons who have scalded 
to death quantities of these larvae, and inhaled the fumes from 
their bodies, have been taken seriously ill, and even been con¬ 
fined to their beds for many days in consequence. Still, these 
larvae are not near so poisonous as the old fashioned Blister- 
beetles already referred to as infesting the potato ; for these last 
are, even in small doses, one of the most powerful medicines, and 
therefore in larger quantities one of the most virulent poisons 
known to the medical profession. 
FOES OF THE COLORADO POTATO BUG. 
Persons not familiar with the economy of insects are con¬ 
tinually broaching the idea that, because the Colorado potato 
