182 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 1 



final decision until the specimens can be compared with Comstock's 

 types. 



Quite often, instead of midges, chalcids would appear in the cages. 

 Mr. Crawford of the Bureau of Entomology pronounces these insects 

 to be of a new species, belonging in a new genus, and he proposes to 

 describe the species as Zatropis catalpce. Whether the chalcids were 

 present in the catalpae shoots as parasites on the midge larvae, or 

 whether, like the wheat- joint worm and a few other members of the 

 family, they are primarily injurious to vegetation, I cannot at pres- 

 ent state. It is not impossible that the midges work on the tender 

 leaves at the terminal end of the twigs, and that the chalcids insert 

 their eggs in the soft wood lower down. Several specimens of the 

 chalcid were obtained this season, all issuing between the middle of 

 July and the middle of August. The three midges obtained emerged 

 August 7. August 8 and September 3, respectively. 



THE CALIFORNIA LIFE HISTORY OF THE GRAPE 

 LEAF-HOPPER 



Typhlocyha comes Say 



By H. J. QuAYLE, Berkeley, Cal. 



Climate is a well-known factor in influencing the life history of 

 insects, and so in California most, if not all, of our insects of economic 

 importance have some points in their life-history that differ from those 

 of the same species in the eastern states. Usually this difference is in 

 the number of broods or length of the period of development, and less 

 often a distinct variance in habits. 



The grape leaf-hopper in California over-winters as an adult insect, 

 feeding on a wide range of food plants during the warmer days; or 

 remaining more or less dormant in bunches of leaves in the vineyard 

 or low down in the dense vegetation of the bordering roadsides and 

 fences during the cold or wet weather. As soon as the foliage appears 

 on the vine in the spring they leave their varied winter food-plants 

 and attack the grape exclusively. After feeding for about three weeks 

 on the vine, pairing begins and eggs will be deposited one week later. 

 This will be about May 1st in the lower Sacramento and San Joaquin 

 valleys. Records were kept on twenty eggs from different hoppers 

 and they required from seventeen to twenty days for incubation. 

 Nymphs hatching from these eggs require on an average eighteen days 

 to go through their five nymphal stages. The duration of each of the 

 stages, summarized from observations on about fifty hoppers, is as 



