Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/725

Rh made known by me in 1863, The beetle hibernates either beneath the ground or beneath any other shelter that it can obtain. Early in spring it issues from its winter quarters, and may be seen flying about, on sunny days, long before there are any potato-tops for it to devour. In flight it presents a very pretty appearance, its gauzy, rose-colored under-wings contrasting agreeably with the striped yellow and black elytra or wing-covers. The sexes pair, and, as soon as the potato haulms push out of the ground, these beetles break their long winter fast, sometimes even working their way down toward the sprout before it is fairly out of the earth. The eggs, which are orange-yellow, are laid in small clusters on the under sides of the leaves, and the same female continues to thus lay at short intervals for a period of over forty days, until the number laid by a single specimen may aggregate from 500 to over 1,000. There are, in the latitude of St. Louis, three broods each year; but, from the fact that a single female continues to deposit as above described, and from the irregularity of larval development, the insect may be found in all stages throughout the summer months. In from thirty to forty days from the time the egg is deposited, the insect hatching from it goes through all its transformations and become a beetle, the pupa state being assumed under-ground. The prolificacy of the species may be imagined when it is remembered that the progeny of a single female may exceed a hundred millions in the course of a single season! The beetle feeds as well as the larva, though not so voraciously. Its attacks are principally confined to plants of the family Solanaceæ and it is particularly fond of those belonging to the genus Solanum. Yet I have recorded many

instances of its acquiring new habits in its march to the Atlantic, and of its feeding, when hard pushed, on plants of other families. There are various means of destroying the insect, and in the earlier invaded territory of the States, though it continues its ravages, thereby making the cultivation of potatoes more laborious, and increasing their market price, yet it is no longer dreaded as it at first was, for the