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meiit. This orcliard was very badly infested this year, and a very large 

 perceutage of Ihe pears of all varieties, except the Kieflfers, were 

 attacked. Jt is an iiiterestinj;- fact and one of a great deal of practical 

 importance, i)erliaps, that thus iar I have not found a Kieffer pear 

 infested. This may not be due entirely to any peculiarity in the fruit 

 itself, but to the fact that so far as the midge has extended at present 

 the Kiefter blossoms first and perhaps gets a little ahead of the adult 

 insect. 1 had an opportunity this year of watching the oviposition of 

 the insects and tin<l tliat Schniidberger's account, as quoted by Dr. 

 Lintner and subsequently in my Bulletin No. 99 of the New Jersey 

 Experiment Station, is correct in all essential features. I find that the 

 eggs are deposited in little masses in the buds long before they are 

 opened. There is no one point that seems to be more favored than 

 others in oviposition. Usually the point where the bud is most easily 

 penetrated is the place selected, but sometimes it is pierced through 

 the side by the female close to the base, or at any point. More usu- 

 ally, perhaps, no trace of a puncture is to be discovered, but the ovi- 

 positor has been apparently inserted at the point where the petals of 

 the future flower were slightly separated. The eggs themselves were 

 not attached in all cases to any part of the flower, but seem to be con- 

 nected with each other either b3- a very frail tissue or by a gummy 

 excretion. I have not been able to watch the actual oviposition itself, 

 but from the mouuted specimens it almost appears as if the eggs were laid 

 in little masses rather than singly. I am not certain that this is pos- 

 sible, and the appt arance may be due to a spread of the gummy material 

 surrounding the eggs. I had no difficulty whatever in finding the 

 eggs in the buds, and usually in those that might be considered as 

 normally developed. Very early buds, very far advanced, usually con- 

 tained no eggs, and those that were very late, crii)pled, or retarded 

 were also Usually bare of them. The very fact that only normal buds 

 were infested would seem to indicate that the insects were thus given 

 a somewhat better chance, because either very early or very late 

 flowers would stand less chance of being pollenized and thus furnishing 

 food for the young larvip. I am inclined to believe that in many cases, 

 at all events where the bud had been punctured, its opening was 

 slightly retarded, and possibly this may be an advantage to the insect, 

 giving the egg a little longer time to hatch and make its way into the 

 ovary of the flower before the bud actually oj^ens. So far as 1 

 examined I found it to be invariable that the young larvaj made their 

 way into the ovary before the flower opened. While there is not much 

 difficulty in finding the eggs in the unoj^ened bud, I did find a very 

 great dilficulty in seeing the very young larva? in the open flower. 

 And those specimens that I did find showed so little ditterentiation 

 from the egg that it seemed almost in some cases as if the egg itself 

 had the power of motion, enabling it to get into the plant tissue before 

 the opening of the flow^er. None of the stains that I attempted to use 



