532 Forty-fourth Report of the State Museum 



"It is the most dangerous insect foe with which we have to deal. 

 That it taxes them more heavily than all other such enemies com- 

 bined, is burnt into the convictions of thousands of farmers by 

 repeated heavy losses and bitter disappointment." 



The following year, 1884, as the result of the thorough plowing, 

 burning, and other active measures with which it was met, and no 

 doubt, also, to seasonal conditions unfavorable to it, it did not 

 reappear in northern New York, in injurious number. Since that 

 time, I have had no knowledge of further injuries from it, until quite 

 recently, a correspondent, Mr. Van Duzee, of Buffalo, who is making 

 special study of the order of Hemiptera, to which the chinch-bug 

 belongs, has written me of serious losses resulting from its presence, 

 in Erie county, particularly in the central portion of the county, near 

 Lancaster. He reports a field of three acres of timothy grass at 

 Lancaster, which in 1888 yielded as fine a crop as was ever seen, the 

 past year not worth the cutting, as the result of the operations of the 

 bug. Fortunately the attack was arrested and kept from spreading 

 as it gave every indication of doing, by the cold heavy rains that com- 

 menced on the 18th of May and continued for nearly a month, fol- 

 lowed by the notable sharp frost on the 29th of May. Many of the 

 farmers had complained to him of serious injuries to their hay crops 

 in 1888 and 1889, "from the bug." 



The GkAPEVINE FliEA-BEETLE. 



The grapevine flea-beetle, Haltica clialyhea (111.)^ is apparently on 

 the increase in western New York, and is becoming a pest of the 

 grape -growers, if we may judge from the frequent inquiries received 

 of its habits and how to deal with it. Its multiplication should not 

 be permitted, but should be persistently fought by breaking up or 

 removing in the autumn its usual places of hibernation, as loose bark 

 and the refuse material of the vineyard, and by preventing the beetle 

 eating out the heart of the buds in early spring. It is claimed that 

 this form of injury can be prevented by spraying, in March, with a 

 mixture of lime-wash made with brine, to which is added some Lon- 

 don purple. The grapevine leaf-hoppers are also occasioning a great 

 amount of harm. I purpose as soon as may be, to give them special 



study. 



The Cow-horn Fly. 



A new insect pest has been exciting much interest in adjoining 

 states — in New Jersey and Pennsylvania during the past year. As 

 yet, it has not, to my knowledge appeared in the State of New York, 

 but as it will in all probability soon extend its range hither as it is 



