— 5 — 
Maidstone reported the damaged as being very severe, and found 
the yellow Springtails on the foliage in great numbers. 
These small yellow Aptera are most active in their mature stages, 
skipping from the foliage at the least movement, and in conse- 
quence, unless one proceeds with very great care, nothing will 
be found on the plants. The adults are bright orange yellow with 
black eyes, the immature stages pale yellow and the dark eyes not 
so prominent. The young forms, some the size of a pin point, 
evidently just hatched, are almost white. The immature insects 
are not active like the adults, but gradually become more and 
more agile. Whilst the adults are difficult to capture except by 
sweeping, the immature ones can easily be taken in a glass tube. 
They appear to feed exclusively on the under sides of the 
foliage, where they eat away the lower epidermis and the soft 
mesophyll tissue beneath, leaving the upper epidermis intact. 
The eaten areas (fig. 2) are at first mainly confined to small 
patches between the veins of the leaves, sometimes the veins 
are eaten through, and thus larger patches are formed. These 
areas vary from 1 to 3 mm. in length and show as smaller pale 
spots on the upper surface of the leaves of a yellow or rusty 
brown hue. Later, these patches or spots burst, and ragged holes 
are formed, the edges heal and a ragged, stunted appearance of the 
foliage is produced, as shown in the figure (fig. 1). 
When young leaves are attacked, the resultant damage is very 
serious, and growth is quite checked. 
Although these Springtails work most rapidly in June and early 
July, they may be found on the young leaves in May, and if in 
any numbers it seems to me that at this time they do the most 
harm. 
I have found them on the foliage until the second week in 
September. 
The amount of damage done by each of these minute insects, 
like a grain of sand in size, is considerable; one on a leaf will cause 
the damage shown in figure 2 (2), in a couple of days, and if left 
this leaf soon becomes a riddled ragged structure seen in figure 2(3). 
The surface of the mid vein and larger lateral veins is also 
gnawed and presents a rusty appearance, and in some cases had 
clearly caused the leaves to curl as seen in figure 3. 
Experiments were made by placing a dozen of this Sminthurus 
luteus on healthy shoots on bushes under muslin tents, and in all 
cases in a couple of weeks the result seen was the same as that 
