355 



•would like to hear from any of the station entomologists who are 

 advantageously situated and who would be willing to take charge of 

 a few of these j)uparia, with the idea of liberating the adults in wheat 

 fields which are badly infested with the Hessian Fly. 



THE AUSTRALIAN "FLY-BUG." 



On page 381 of Volume II, and page 30 of the current volume we 

 have mentioned the damage done by an insect which is popularly 

 known by the name of " fly-bug," in different parts of Australia. This 

 insect seems to have made its appearance as a marked pest in 1889, 

 although Mr. Tepper writes us that he has known it to occur in great 

 numbers in wheat fields in Australia since 1853. In 1889 and 1890 it 

 seriously damaged the vineyards, orchards, and gardens of New South 

 Wales. It attacks particularly the fruit-stems of the Grape, Plum, and 

 the Apple, causing the fruit to dry up instead of ripening. It is, in 

 fact, practically omnivorous, causing great injury to all common fruits, 

 cereals, and vegetables. We suspected from accounts and figures that 

 this insect was the False Chinch-bug of this country, {Nysius angusta- 

 tus), and wrote Mr. Fraser S. Crawford last fall to the following effect: 



I am particularly interested in the insect which you call the "fly-bug," and 

 which Mr. Tepper places in the genua Pachymerus. Your iigure very much resembles 

 our American Nysius angustatus, and on the supposition that it is this insect accident- 

 ally imported into your country from the United States, I am desirous of seeing speci- 

 mens. Can you not send me some ? I did not receive it from Koebele. 



Mr. Crawford's sending as well as a subsequent one from Mr. Tepper 

 were, unfortunately, lost in the mail. In the letter accompanying the 

 lost specimens Mr. Crawford wrote that the insect was considered by 

 Mr. Tepper and himself to be one of the Lygaeidcc, but that Mr. Skuse 

 thought it a Capsid. Mr. Skuse, in fact, determined it, as we have 

 shown upon page 30 of the present volume, as a species of Phytocoris. 

 Later Mr. Crawford sent two specimens from which we are able to de- 

 termine unhesitatingly that our surmise is correct as to the genus and 

 that the insect is very close indeed to our Nysius angustatus, which feeds 

 on a variety of plants in this country, (principally on Gruciferce) and 

 has been reported from California on Grape. 



In the meantime, in the March number of the Entomologists' Monthly 

 Magazine^ Dr. E. Bergroth has an interesting article referring to the 

 accounts of this insect's injuries in Australia and describing it as Nysius 

 vinitor, n. sp. He does this after having, as he states, compared it with 

 the descriptions of all hitherto described species of Nysius. A careful 

 comparison of the two rather jioor specimens from Australia with Amer- 

 ican specimens, in the light of Bergroth's description, would indicate 

 that vinitor differs from angustatus in being somewhat narrower, in the 

 absence of pubescence above, the more slender and longer basal joint 

 of hind tarsi, and the shorter, more bulbous basal joint of antennae. 

 It is also a darker species. But what we stated in our description (as 



