Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-06-20

As the Colorado potato bug is steadily max
ing his way eastward, as our readers have been
already warned by extracts we have published
from western papers, and may be expected here,
perhaps next year, and pretty certainly the year
after, it may be interesting to have some further
particulars of his appearance and peculiarities.
He is said to have originated in Colorado, as his
common name indicates. Some indigenous
vegetable of the potato family growing in that
region has furnished him with sustenance,
and enabled him to perpetuate his existence,
though affording very inadequate scope for his
voracity and his splendid abilities in the matter
OfprOpagating his species. Most insects injurious
to vegetation, of which we have experience here,
are Of foreign origin, like the plants and fruits
on which they feed, and follow the usual track
of immigration from the sea coast to the interi-
or; but this is purely American bug, and we
may be prond of him if we like, with his fine
eolors, his excellent appetite, his irresistible
march and his reproductive capacity, as an
nndoubted product of our own country. The
naturalists call him dOryphord decemlineGtd, a
descriptive name, which may be fairly rendered
IN English the ten-lined spear-bug.
This insect is said to be beautiful in his bril-
liant and contrasting colors, but this circum
stance in no sensible degree reconciles the
western farmers to his raYages. If there were
any hope that rebuke would make him more
modest and retiring in his manners, they would
quote to him the old saying: Handsome is that
handsome does" His colors are deep red
and cream color, with a double row of jet
black spots along his sides. Though his natural
food is a rank, coarse weed compared with the
cultivated potato, he readily rises above the
prejudces of his original condition, and shows
q discriminating taste in selecting the choicest
varieties of the tuber for his feast Not that he
spares the inferior kinds, but he makes sure of
the best first, and, having Toasted upon them
while they last, he goes TRANQUILITY and
cOnscientiously TO work to deyOur the rest,
letting nothing of the potato kind escape him.
The provocative powers of this insect are some
thing awful to contemplate. A single female
is said to produce on an average seven hundred
copies of itself three times in q season, and in
only thirty-three days from the egg the young
doryphora are mature and ready in their turn
multiply the bug population by seven hun
u If none of her maternal or grandmother
scenes are disappointed, and all of her de-
geance find sustenance and escape the ven
at the ente outraged farmer, her descendants
number ofae season would reach the modest
dOOO bushels. 10000, or by measure about
very few of thema relief to be assured that
inns with their FANNY, have such success as
Many plans have bee
creatures, some of whicLised to DESTROY these
with individuals, but noneceed well enouob
impression on the mass A te any serious
trained his hens to eat them, wbiean farmer
Iuctanhy at first, but greedily eney did re-
their taste had been cultivated to the, when
Out 1t is reported that the attack made l;diet
preston on the bugs, while the latter fatallvp-
agreed with the hens. Sparrows and ducks
Is said' eat these insects with impunity and
Algh relish. Hso, we cannot do better in vi,
vi the approaching advent of the dorvnbo,
Inah 10 encourage both of these useful birds II
s'nl disputed whether men are poisoned ,
nAnuhg the potato bugs -soma o,
lnat their touch on a tender mar,
Inc skin produces blisters and tina, froo,,o
-,'h,,1 s Vi them sometimes proves fata
osiieis ueciare' as the result of their oN
Aperlence' that they may be caught or
l,'u III lhe hands without evil effects mr.
eaie Is taken not to touch the eyes No,
-4oS'n uiiul the hands have been tborouobl
"asneo' Inc process, if harmless conno1
- -sleeapie, Perhaps before the dorypbor
reaches us on his eastern tour soma -
NC iouhd 10 check his raVages, but we snsra,
Ihat we shall have to endure his presence ear an
contribute considerable part Of our notat
crop to his support T''"'