Annual report of the Fruit Growers' Association of Ontario, 1896 . Hope the insect is common enough, but has never been so abundant asto cause any appreciable i^^jury. The Black Potato Beetle. At the end of June I received from the Editor of the Mattawa Tribune, some speci-mens of a beetle that was attacking thepotato plant in myriads in the neighbor-hood of Mattawa, Ont. They proved tobe the black blistering beetle (Macrobasisunicolor, Kirby), a species that belongs toto the same family, Meloidse, as the Spanish-flies, which are used for blis-tering purposes by the medical profession,and that
Annual report of the Fruit Growers' Association of Ontario, 1896 . Hope the insect is common enough, but has never been so abundant asto cause any appreciable i^^jury. The Black Potato Beetle. At the end of June I received from the Editor of the Mattawa Tribune, some speci-mens of a beetle that was attacking thepotato plant in myriads in the neighbor-hood of Mattawa, Ont. They proved tobe the black blistering beetle (Macrobasisunicolor, Kirby), a species that belongs toto the same family, Meloidse, as the Spanish-flies, which are used for blis-tering purposes by the medical profession,and that possesses the same vesicatingproperties. The insect (Fig. 56 ) is longFig. 56. and slender, about half an inch in length, lack in colour and covered with fine whitish hairs which give it an ashen appearance;these hairs are easily rubbed off and leave the insect quite black. It is a northern speciesand is much more commonly found in the upper Ottawa region and on Manitoulin Islandthan in Southern Ontario. In the neighborhood of Montreal it has been very abundant. ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 57 on Windsor, or English broad beans, and caused much damas:e to these plants in somegardens. While at times very destructive to these plants and to potatoes, it is unlikemost iDJurious insects in possessing one good habit at least, and that is its practice offeeding upon the larvae of the Colorado potato beetle. The question may therefore ariseas to whether it does more good than harm. If the evidence should be adverse, then itmay be dealt with precisely as its prey, and the two birds be killed with one stone byan aplication of Paris green in the usual manner. As far as I know, the black blisteringbeetle has only one brood in the year, and therefore only attacks the food plant for alimited period, whereas the Colorado beetle has a succession of broods throughout theseason, and never ceases its depredations from the time when the plants first appearabove the soil in spring, till they
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectfruitculture, bookyea
