THE FOUR-LINED LEAF-BUG : ITS FOOD-PLANTS. 277 



life-history of this noxious insect is still incomplete. Dr. Fitch states 

 that they pair about the middle of June, when they lay a crop of eggs 

 from which another generation completes its growth before the end of 

 the season. The oviposition has not been observed. Dr. Le Baron 

 {loc. cit.) states that it deposits about twenty eggs, which are oblong, 

 subcylindrical, flask-shaped, pale with white tips. It is believed to hi- 

 bernate in its perfect stage, under decaying weeds, in crevices, etc., and 

 to come forth in early spring to deposit its eggs on the stems of the 

 plants which are the most attractive to it. 



Food-Plants. 



Its first appearance in my garden was upon the black currant, as 

 stated, from whence it seemed to spread to the surrounding vegetation, 

 as the morning-glory, phlox, chrysantliemum, pinks, geraniums, day- 

 lily, London-pride, sweet-pea, pig-weed, plantain and clover. Dr. 

 Fitch records it also on red currant, raspberry, bittersweet, wiegelia, 

 burning-bush, sumach, dahlia, snapdragon, soapwort and tansy. In 

 addition to the above. Dr. Le Baron records it as very injurious to 

 parsnips ; Mr. Wm. Saunders, as occurring on mint and Deutzia; and 

 Dr. D. N. De Tarr has noted its occurrence the present year in his 

 garden, in Albany, in addition to several of the preceding, on lettuce, 

 common pea, radish, squash, cucumber and gooseberry. 



Very Injurious to Dahlias. 



It would seem from the above extended list of food-plants, to be a 

 very general feeder on garden products, and it is certainly at times 

 very injurious to several of them. Dr. Fitch has given the following 

 account of its injuries to one of its favorite food-plants :* '' In the year 

 1858, I learned from A. F. Chatfield, the florist in Albany, that upon 

 all his dahlia plants that year, when the first flower-bud put out, these 

 bugs assembled upon it, puncturing and poisoning it so that it 

 withered. Two or three new flower-stalks would then shoot forth from 

 tlie base of this one, the buds of which would be attacked and destroyed 

 in tlie same manner. Others would tlien put out from the bases of 

 these, to share the same fate. Thus it went on, the whole season 

 through. An enormously broad mass of leaves and stalks, fully three 

 feet in diameter, thus grew from each of the dahlia roots in his garden, 

 without a single flower from all the multitude of flower buds which 

 had thus been developed. D. S. Hefi'ron, of Utica, informed me that 

 in the summer of 1864, these prettily striped yellow bugs so infested 

 his dahlias that only three or four little imperfect flowers were ])ro- 

 duced. And in all the gardens in and around Utica that year, the 



♦Thirteenth Report, in Trans. N. Y. State Agricul. Soc. for 1869, xxix, 1870, p. 514. 



