180 



APPLIED ENTOMOLOGY 



where fungi project from the leaf surface. Several species are occasion- 

 ally rather injurious. 



Famihj Miridae. — This family until recently was called the Capsidse. 

 It contains a very large number of species, perhaps more than any other 

 family of bugs, all small, and all feeding on plant juices. Some feed on 

 grass; others on succulent stems; some make a specialty, at least at cer- 

 tain seasons, of sucking the sap from leaf and flower buds, distorting 

 them or even preventing their development. Sometimes they are 

 present in great numbers and do much injury. Fruit is attacked by some 

 species, while it is small and rapidly growing, and such attacks produce 

 "dimples" or small depressed areas, or they may even deform and thus 

 greatly reduce the value of the fruit. Many secondary and potential 

 pests belong in this family. 



Some of the adults are bright red; others red and black, yellow and 

 black or other colors. In those feeding on grass, grayish-yellow or 

 greenish-yellow is a frequent color. In many cases 

 it seems that this is in some way connected with the 

 color of their food, as for example, some species 

 found on the stems of the red dogwood are them- 

 selves largely red, though in other cases it is difficult 

 to discover any such correspondence of color between 

 the insect and its food plant. 



The Meadow Plant-bug {Miris dolohratus L.). — 

 This is apparently a species introduced from Europe 

 about a hundred years ago and now found over the 

 eastern United States and as far west and south as 

 Minnesota and Kentucky. It attacks cultivated 

 grasses and is often extremely abundant. The adult 

 (Fig. 168) is a rather slender bug about two-fifths 

 of an inch long, with quite narrow wings. It is 

 or yellowish-gray with darker markings and has long, black 



Fig. 168. — Meadow 

 Plant-bug {Miris 

 dolohratus L.), nearly 

 twice natural size. 

 {Original.) 



gray 

 antennae. 



The eggs are laid in late summer and fall in grass stems, for the most 

 part below the cutting level. They hatch the following spring and 

 the nymphs feed on the sap of the plant stems for a little over a month 

 before becoming adult. Many of the adults have short wings, a similar 

 condition to that found in the chinch bug, but here the two forms mingle 

 everywhere, though the short-winged individuals may make up as much 

 as 90 per cent of the total number. 



Control. — Wintering in the egg stage in grass stems suggests the 

 possibility of destroying many of the insects by burning over grass fields 

 and particularly places where the grass was not cut, during the winter 

 season. Early and close cutting of the fields might leave the insects 

 little to feed on. Fall pasturing of the fields and the cultivation of sod 



