212 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [May, '08 



The Blackberry Leaf-Miner* 



(Scolioneura capitalis Norton.) 



BY C. O. HOUGHTON, Newark, Del. Entomologist, Delaware 



Experiment Station. 



About the middle of June, 1905, my attention was called to 

 an injury, said to be quite serious, to dewberries on a farm 

 near Dover, Delaware. My first visit to the place was on 

 June i6th, at which time I found a field of about four acres 

 considerably injured by a leaf-miner. Upon some of the plants 

 dozens of leaves showed large, brownish blotches, and not a 

 few of them contained two or three mines; the majority of the 

 leaves, however, had but one. The patch was upon compara- 

 tively new ground, but was at some distance from woods. 

 Other berry fields at some distance from this one (three or 

 four miles) were said to be attacked in the same manner, 

 but I did not see any of these. The owner of the field in ques- 

 tion stated that this was the first occurrence of the pest in his 

 fields. 



Several of the leaves containing mines were collected and 

 brought home for study. An examination of the larvae show- 

 ed that they were apparently saw-fly larvae, but at that time I 

 was unable to place them satisfactorily. An attempt was made 

 to rear them by placing the leaves in jars containing earth, 

 but apparently all of the larvae died without entering the earth ; 

 at least several which emerged from their mines were later 

 found dead on top of the earth in the jars. 



On June 28th, 1905, I again visited the infested field, but 

 found only a very few leaves upon the plants which contained 

 larvae. Evidently they had practically all pupated at that date. 

 An attempt was made to locate some of the pupae in the ground 

 near the bases of some of the infested plants, but without re- 

 sult. 



On July nth I left Newark for a month's vacation, and 

 upon my return early in August learned that a second brood 

 of the leaf-miner had appeared and that this brood had oc- 

 casioned more injury than the first. A letter from the owner 

 of the field, dated July 3ist, stated that the miners were very 

 abundant at that time, and occasioning considerable injury. 



