144 



Forty- FIFTH Ixeport on the State Museum. 



Fig. 7 — Section of a pear con- 

 taining the larvae, and an un- 



Discovered at Catskill, N. Y. 

 During the last week in May of the present year (1891), some young 

 pears were sent to me from Catskill, N, Y., with 

 the inquiry of the name of the attacking insect. 

 The nature of the inquiry was not evident at 

 the first inspection, as the fruit was fair, 

 unbroken, and showed no external injury — its 

 j)eculiar deformation being unnoticed. But 

 upon cutting into one the interior Avas found to 

 be occupied hy a large company of active 

 little bodies which, wriggling out and dropping 

 to the table, commenced to give evidence of 

 their sharing in the saltatory powers belonging 

 to many of the Cecidomyicis and particularly 

 to the genus IHplosis, by throwing them- 

 selves from a small box in which some had 

 been placed to a distance of two inches and! 

 more in a single bound. The attack upon 

 the fruit was at once recognized as that of the- 



infested one for comparison • j 7-> • 7 • • „ 



of forms (original). Y>^SiY m\^ge, BiploSlS J^yriVOra. 



In a visit to Catskill immediately following this discovery, all the 

 orchards that could be examined during the day, within a radius of 

 two miles, were found badly infested with the insect, and its presence ini 

 other orchards more distant was i-eported. In those of Mr. Theodore A. 

 Cole, where it was first detected, the attack was the most severe- 

 There were here many old and quite large Lawrence pear-trees, heavily 

 laden Avith fruit, but an examination showed that at the least ninety 

 jjer cent of the fruit was filled with the full-grown midge larvte. Other 

 varieties were infested in a less degree, among which were the Vicar, 

 Anjou, Seckel, Bartlett, and Buerre Bosc. Mr. Cole had observed the 

 attack in his orchards four A^ears previous (in 1887); in 1889 the 

 Lawrences were almost entirely destroyed by it. He had neglected 

 calling attention to it until the present season, thinking that it was a 

 well-known trouble which could not be prevented. 



In passing over the orchards and obsei'ving so large a proportion of 

 the fruit infested, Mr. Cole asked — " how can this condition folloAv a 

 year (1890) in which I had no pears: where did the midge breed?" 

 This could not be answered until, upon coming to some Buerre Bosc 

 trees Avhicli were now for the first time found to contain the larvje,. 

 Mr. Cole recalled the fact that this variety had borne some fruit the 

 preceding year and was the only one that had done so. How the 

 raidge had been carried over " a no pear year " was at once satisfac- 



