ose 
CURTIS (1) in 1883 calls them « Ground Fleas », a term I have 
often heard used by gardeners in the South of England. 
He refers to Sminthurus solani (2) as follows : « It is not bigger 
than a small grain of sand, and either of a deep ochreous hue with 
black eyes, oris as black as soot with ochreous horns. The head is 
large, like a great mask and attached by a slender neck; the eyes 
are placed on each side of the crown; the horns more than half 
the length of the body, slender, elbowed and four jointed (the 
terminal joint appears to be divided into six lobes), the trunk and 
body are united, forming a large globose mass with a forked tail 
doubled under the latter for leaping; the six legs are rather short 
and apparently triarticulate. 
» These minute animals are nourished by eating the parenchyma 
of the green leaves, but some species feed on fungi. » This refers 
to attack on the potato crop. 
Again (p. 433) CURTIS tells us that « in Nova Scotia the crop of 
turnips and cabbages are principally destroyed whilst in the second 
leaf, by some Sminthurus, the size of a pin’s head and nearly 
globular. It hops with great agility by means of its forked tail, and 
may be found on every square inch of all old cultivated ground, 
but it is not plentiful on new land ». 
MURRAY (3) says : « Our young gherkins will be found shri- 
velling, and on examination it will be seen that they have been 
stripped of great portions of their skin that has been browsed or 
rasped away by these little creatures. Nor are their ravages con- 
fined to frames, although the greater heat there seems to suit their 
delicate semi-transparent bodies. But in the open borders they carry 
on the same work on succulent roots and plants, specially where 
anything has happened to diminish the vitality of the plant. 
» On carrots, for instance, that are suffering from rust, they will 
be found browsing on the sound parts. » 
COLLINGE (4) records damage to bulbs by Collembola, especially 
to hyacinth, narcissus and tulip bulbs. 
« The nature of the injury is the same, he says, in all cases and 
consists in scraping away the epidermis and then the softer tissue 
(1) Farm Insects, p. 432, 1883. 
(2) This is evidently Sminthurus luteus of LUBBOCK. 
(3) Economic Entomology, Aptera. p. 404. 
(4) Journ. Econ. Bio!., IV, N° 3, p. 86, 1909. 
