340 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [\'ul. 4 



on some of the bushes on the university grounds, the entire foliage is 

 given a brown unhealthy color, strikingly different from the live green 

 of the uninjured plants. There are few Christmas-berry bushes in the 

 Santa Clara Valley that escape the attack of this insect. The pest 

 is also found occasionally and sparingly on the live oak, Quercus 

 agrifolia, where the trees are close to Christmas-berry bushes. 



The life history and habits of the insect have been studied by me 

 through the present year (1910) and may be described as follows: 



The adult female begins egg-laying about the middle of March. 

 This year the first observation of the egg was on March 13. The eggs 

 for the first twenty-five or thirty days are laid in thin groups of from 

 four to eight. They are always laid upon the under surface of the 

 leaf. By the middle of April, however, the vitality of the female 

 seems greater, for eggs are laid in larger numbers. Close, compact 

 groups of from fifteen to twenty eggs, all laid by the sazne female, are 

 common. 



The eggs are whitish and glistening, oval in shape, and average 

 about .3 mm. in length. One end is broader than the other. The 

 egg is deposited on the broad end and inserted upright into the leaf 

 tissue, the broad half being beneath the surface of the leaf and fitting 

 snugly into an incision made by the ovipositor. It is then com- 

 pletely covered by a brown sticky substance which hardens soon after 

 oviposition. The summit of the cone-like mound thus formed is squarely 

 truncate. The top is porous and forms a lid which comes off when the 

 nymph issues. A group of such bodies from which the nymphs have 

 issued look not a litt'.e like a number of minature volcanoes with crater- 

 like openings at the top. A careful study was made of the incubation 

 of the egg. It was found to vary from thirty-one to forty-seven days, 

 depending upon the amount of sunlight, wind, temperature, etc. 

 These observations were made upon many groups of eggs in different 

 localities about the University, which were subject to different local 

 conditions. 



Nymph, Stage I. The first nymphs seen in 1910 hatched on April 12. They 

 are oval, wingless, of a dirty brown color, and nearly the entire body is covered with 

 short spines. They are very sluggish, not moving from the leaf on which they 

 were hatched, and having a strong tendency to remain close together with their 

 heads pointing toward a central spot. A group of from fifteen to twenty nymphs 

 always actively feeding will discolor a fresh, green leaf in a short time with their 

 excrement and the little white mounds made by the continual puncturing for food. 



The nymph moults five times and gradually increases in size from .6 mm. (length 

 of first stage) to 2.6 mm. (length of adult). 



The nymph of the first stage is .6 mm. long, by .24 mm. wide. It is ovoid in shape. 

 The legs and antennae are stout, the legs about one half the length of the body and the 

 antennae a little shorter. The antennae are three-segmented and covered with 

 short spines, the third segment being twice as long as the first and second combined. 



