The alarm as to the arrival of the Colorado beetle,—the
beetle which attacks the potato,—in Europe, seems to have been some- what premature. At least, the German specimen turns out on examination to be, not the potato-beetle, Doryphora decemlineata (the ten-lined spear-bearer), but the Doryphora juncta (the joined spear-bearer), a nearly allied species, native to the Southern States of America, but not one which attacks potatoes. Nevertheless, as Mr. Andrew Murray, of the Bethnal-Green Branch Museum, points out in the Times, if a near relative among the beetles with no fancy for potatoes has managed to cross the Atlantic, there is but too much reason to fear that his cousin, the potato-fancier, will manage to survive the passage, especially as the latter belongs to a much more numerous family than the former. May it not be, however, that it is because the Doryphora juncta has not had the success on the other side of the water which his cousins have had, that he has embarked for Europe as an emigrant ? It is the less successful, not the more successful races who try emigration ; and as the potato-beetle prospers and multiplies on the American continent, let us hope that he will let well alone, and not think of making the grand tour.
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