370 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 1 



DIMPLES IN APPLES FROM OVIPOSITION OF LYGUS 



PRATENSIS L. 



By EsTES P. Taylor, Mountain Grove, Missouri 



To one conducting experiments against insect pests infesting fruits 

 it is especialty important that the cause of all external blemishes upon 

 the fruits be known. Failure to recognize the cause of such injuries 

 has often been responsible for misleading and incorrect conclusions 

 regarding the effectiveness of insecticidal sprays. Mistaken identifi- 

 cation of insect work is often brought about by superficial examination 

 of fruit at picking. At this time the growth of the fruit has often so 

 completely altered the appearance of the injury that its true cause is 

 never suspected. 



Careful and almost continuous observations in an apple orchard 

 this season from the time of the formation of the fruit to harvest re- 

 sulted in the discovery that an injury of doubtful nature but re- 

 sembling and formerly classed as that caused by the plum or the 

 apple curculio was, instead, the result of egg punctures made in the 

 very early dcA^elopment of the apple by the common tarnished plant- 

 bug {Lygus pratensis L.). On account of their direct bearing upon 

 the examinations of apples by those conducting spraying experi- 

 ments in the control of curculio upon apple, the results of these ob- 

 servations are herein reported. The observations also add new in- 

 formation upon the egg-laying habits of the tarnished plant-bug, one 

 of the oldest recorded insects in North America. 



Late in IMareh at Mountain Grove, Missouri, my attention was called 

 to the great abundance of the tarnished plant-bugs about the .buds 

 and newly opened blossoms of early blooming varieties of peach. 

 They were noted in great numbers about the blossoms of peaches in 

 the station orchard by the director of the station, while engaged in 

 hand pollinating blossoms. Many blossoms were seen at this time 

 which had evidently been blasted by this insect having pierced the 

 tissue and sucked away the juices of the essential organs of the bloom. 

 A very noticeable percentage of the blossoms were noted at that time 

 darkened and shrunken and falling away, evidently from this cause. 

 At Olden, on INIarch 27, I noticed numbers of the bugs about the buds 

 of peach, plum, apple and pears, and in making jarrings for curculio 

 under peach and plum trees a number of the bugs were collected upon 

 the jarring sheet. On April 10, while examining with an assistant, 

 Mr. C. B. Dull, fruit buds in an apple orchard selected for a spraying 

 experiment with curculio and codling-moth, small dark-colored spots 

 Avere noticed upon the sides of the ovary of the apple bloom. These 



