New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 311 



In his report for 1891 Lintner 4 again gives an account of the 

 attack on young pears at Rochester in which the "fruit was com- 

 pletely ruined by the gnarling, knotting and deformation caused by 

 the punctures and feeding of one of the plant-bugs, Lygus pratensis L." 

 Mention is also made of similar injuries to pears by a closely-related 

 species, Lygus invitus Say, in another locality. During this season 

 some observations were made on the operations of the plant-bug on 

 fruit, and on other of its activities. It is also stated that while the 

 work of this latter insect is quite general it is not often serious. 



In 1893 Riley 5 recorded that an undetermined species of Lygus 

 had caused injuries to young pears at South Byron, N. Y. 



In 1895 Slingerland 6 called attention to "hard, knotty kernels 

 (in pears) which are so often accompanied by irregular pustular 

 spots or cracks" and "which were very prevalent in many pear 

 orchards in western New York in 1894." The suggestion is made 

 that these injuries are the work of plant-bugs or the plum curculio 7 . 



OBSERVATIONS AND EXPERIMENTS TO DETERMINE IDENTITY OF 



INSECT. 



During the early summer of 1908 there were many complaints of 

 deformed pears, especially from the region about Lockport. In an 

 inspection of a number of orchards the injury was found to consist 

 largely of the cracking open, in small areas, of the skin of the fruit, 

 with the margins of the wounds slightly raised above the general 

 surface, while the exposed tissues were of a hard, granular nature. 

 The injuries, to all appearances, seemed to be identical with those 

 described in the foregoing accounts. Attempts were made to dis- 

 cover the agent responsible for the damage in the hope that the 

 culprit would be observed in the midst of his destructive activities. 

 Repeated observations, however, failed to find an insect at work upon 



«Rept. Inj. Ins. N. Y. 8:125. 1891 (1893). 



'Insect Life 5:18. 1893. 



•Cornell Expt. Sta. Bui. 93:221. 1895. (Footnote.) 



'Through the courtesy of Prof. C. R. Crosby of Cornell University, we have been 

 able since the preparation of the bulletin to examine Slingerland's notes and 

 correspondence covering the earlier occurrences of this insect in New York. 

 Among these there are records of injured fruit received by him during the 

 period of 1895 to 1906 from South Byron, Spencerport, Lockport and Wyoming, 

 which show that this insect had caused considerable injury to pears in certain 

 orchards. It is also of interest to note that in his correspondence regarding 

 this species a letter dated July 24, 1899, bears the memorandum " Lygus sp.? " , 

 and that another of July 17, 1906, is endorsed " Lygus invitus." 



