As long ago as 1872 I found the larva of a little flea-beetle known as Haltica punctipennis in Missouri, feeding upon Hawthorn. In 1877 I found it again in Colorado, but the species has never been considered injurious until the present year. This spring, however, it has appeared in great numbers in the vicinity of Dallas, Tex., and of Gainesville, Tex. Mr. J. R. Johnson, of Dallas, writes that they appeared in great numbers about the first week in May, and that within two or three days thereafter they had destroyed his entire lot of apple and pear grafts. They then removed to his one and two year old apple trees. Mr. Johnson had never been troubled with them before, although he remembers to have seen them in limited numbers in 1883 upon his young apples.

The habits and general appearance of this new apple pest are quite similar to those of the grapevine flea beetle H. chalybea. The larva is rather slender, dark yellow-brown in color, with darker head and prothoracic shield, and each segment bears four transverse dorsal warts. The legs are black, and project out at the sides of the thorax.

The adult beetle is shining green rather than steel blue, and is distinguished from the grapevine flea beetle by its smaller size and the numerous impressed dots on the thorax and wing covers.

This insect, although exciting considerable alarm, will easily be subdued by arsenical poisons, the use of which is well understood in Texas. Mr. Johnson has already applied Paris Green in its dry form with good results.