306 WHEAT THRIPS AMERICAN SPECIES OF THRIPS. 



species is published by Mr. Curtis in his paper on insects affecting 

 the corn crops, in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, 

 vol. vi, p. 499; and figures of the insect and its dissected parts, 

 in the several stages of its growth, from Mr. Ilaliday's manu- 

 scripts, are given in the list of Homopterous insects in the British 

 Museum, part iv, plates vi,vii and viii. In the year 1805, one- 

 third of the wheat crop in the province of Piedmont is said to 

 have been destroyed by this seemingly insignificant little insect. 

 Mr. Kirby says it is by far the most numerous of any insect upon 

 the wheat in England; he does not think he ever examined an 

 ear of wheat without meeting with it. He says it takes its station 

 in the longitudinal furrow of the seed, in the bottom of which 

 it seems to fix its beak, and probably sucks the milky juice which 

 swells the grain. Thus by depriving the kernel of part, and in 

 some cases perhaps the whole of its moisture, it causes it to shrink 

 up and become what the farmers call "pungled." According to 

 Vassali Eandi, it also gnaws the young stalks just above the 

 knots, causing the ear to become abortive in consequence of these 

 wounds. It is late sown wheat which is reported to be chiefly 

 injured by this insect; and early sowing is the only remedy 

 which I find spoken of by those who have written upon it. 



Our American species of this order of insects are probably as 

 numerous as those of Europe, but none of them have been ex- 

 amined and described, except one which occurs in small hollows 

 gnawed in young apples, of which some account was given in 

 my last report. I have repeatedly noticed different kinds of 

 these insects upon growing wheat in the State of New-York, but 

 not in such numbers that I supposed they were doing any ap- 

 preciable injury to the crop. One of these species is very simi- 

 lar to the P/ilaothrips Statices, Haliday, which in Europe occurs 

 in myriads upon the flowers of the Thrift (Statice Armeria Lin.) 

 That which I have met with most common, upon wheat in my 

 own vicinity is the Three-banded Thrips, hereafter described. 

 Dr. Harris has also seen the larva of a Thrips (Treatise, p. 205) 

 which he supposes to be the T. cerealium. He merely states 

 that it was orange-colored; and as the larva of T. cerealium has 

 a black or dusky head and two spots of the same color on the 

 fore part of the thorax, and its antennae and legs have alternate 



