240 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 10 



and wheat, and they were also quite plentiful in the vicinity of Winters 

 and Wichita Falls, and in the district around Sherman. 



The species having been under close observation in the vicinity of 

 Wellington throughout the season and since we had noticed their con- 

 tinual gradual increase up till October and November, 1915, we began 

 to suspect that they were increasing more rapidly than usual. The 

 first week of December they were so abundant as to be doing consider- 

 able damage to a number of wheat fields in Sumner county, Kansas, and 

 in Grant county, Oklahoma, the heaviest infestation being in the vicin- 

 ity of Medford. Upon noting the heavily infested fields near Medford, 

 it was deemed advisable to make a thorough search of Grant county, 

 Oklahoma, and Sumner county, Kansas, for the pest. Accordingly we 

 drove some eight or nine hundred miles east, west, north, and south, in 

 search of fields which might be as heavily infested as those around 

 Medford and immediately west of Welhngton, Kansas. No such 

 infestation was located, but the insect was found in almost every wheat 

 field visited, especially in wheat fields following oats. In almost every 

 instance where we found as many as a dozen or more Toxoptera, we 

 also found Aphidius testaceipes. The number of parasites present 

 indicated that under favorable weather conditions in the spring we 

 would not have an outbreak of this pest, if it was within the power of 

 the parasite to control the pest, as had been claimed for it by one 

 writer in discussing the outbreak of 1907, and the smaller outbreaks of 

 1908 at Leavenworth, Kansas, of 1909 in southwestern Oklahoma, and 

 ef 1911 in eastern Oklahoma. However, in the three latter cases, 

 favorable rains assisted the parasites in the control of the pest, and I 

 would not feel at liberty to give the parasites too much credit for what 

 they did in controlling these three incipient outbreaks. 



Outbreak Inevitable 



On the 25th of April, after having investigated a number of fields in 

 widely separated districts, it was apparent that we were to have an out- 

 break of this pest if the weather continued as it had been for the last 

 thirty days. It seemed advisable that I inform the state officials that 

 an outbreak was pending. I received a telegram from Mr. Dean, advis- 

 ing me that his able assistant, Mr. McColloch, would be in Wellington 

 the morning of the 28th, and a long distance telephone message from 

 Professor Hungerford, acting in charge in the absence of Dr. Hunter, 

 stating that he would be in Wellington the morning of the 29th. Mr. 

 McColloch arrived in Wellington at 7.15 a. m., April 28, and we started 

 out on an automobile trip about 8 o'clock. We went west from Wel- 

 lington on what is known as the Chisholm Trail, out by the way of 

 Argonia to Harper, Kansas. We found Toxoptera quite abundant in 



