222 Agricultural Experiment Station, Ithaca, N. Y. 



In 1884 the pest made a serious attack upon gooseberry bushes at 

 the Experiment Station at Geneva, N. Y., and so injured the young 

 tips that they have shriveled, withered down and died. During the 

 preceding three years the insect had been present in the same garden. 

 And in 1885 it did considerable damage to sage in this garden and also 

 at Batavia, N. Y, In 1887 Dr. Lintner answered a query in regard to 

 the pest which was destroying the correspondent's currant bushes at 

 Fairmount, N. Y. And in the same year Mr. Van Duzee captured the 

 insect in the neighborhood of Buffalo. This completes the record of 

 the insect in our State up to the outbreak in the horticultural garden 

 here in 1892. 



Occurrence of the pest elsewhere. — In 1832 Say recorded the insect as 

 common in the Northwest Territory, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Missouri 

 and Georgia. In 1 869 the editors of the American Entomologist received 

 specimens of the insect from a correspondent in Painesvilh-, O. It 

 had appeared there the year before and was then quite injurious to the 

 leaves of currant and various other shrubs, as wiegelia, deutzia, etc. 

 Dr. Le Baron in 1861 found that the insect had done considerable dam- 

 age to his currant bushes and still more to some parsnips in his garden 

 in Illinois. In the same year Saunders says he had seen the insect 

 upon currant bushes in Ontario, Canada, but never in alarming num- 

 bers. He had, however, seen it almost entirely destroy patches of mint 

 and other plants. In 1875 Glover recorded the insect as very common 

 in Maryland; and added another food-plant, the potato. Dr. Uhler 

 in 1878 examined specimens of the insect taken near Pembina, North 

 Dakota. He said it appeared to be common in many parts of the 

 Northwest on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains. 



In May, 1886, Dr. Riley found the nymphs blighting the young 

 shoots of both gooseberry and currant bushes at Columbus, O. In the 

 same year Mr. Webster experimented with the insect at La Fayette, 

 Ind., but failed to determine whether the insect injected a poisonous 

 saliva into the wounds made by its beak, thereby causing the death of 

 the punctured object. Prof. Weed found the pest affecting a 

 considerable percentage of the terminal shoots of currant and goose- 

 berry bushes on the grounds of the Ohio Experiment Station at 

 Columbus in 1888. The same season Mr. Manning reports it as injur- 

 ing more than twenty different species of plants in gardens at Brook- 

 line, Mass. The next we hear of the insect is from Ivirkwood, Mo., 

 where Miss Murtfeldt found it doing considerable damage to clover in 

 1890. The same year Prof. Smith lists as common throughout 

 New Jersey. Prof. Cook records the msect as uncommonly uumer- 



