401 



The remedy employed by Mr. Falconer consists in simply pulling off 

 and destroying the infested leaves as soon as the mines are discovered^ 

 and he reports that this method proved entirely effectual. 



A CECIDOMYIID INJURIOUS TO THE GARDEN POPPY. 



A somewhat extended search through the literature on this subject 

 has failed to reveal a single recorded instance where a cecidomyiid of 

 any kind has been bred in this country from any portion of the garden 

 poppy. In Europe, however, two different si^ecies are known to attack 

 it, both of them confining their depredations to the seed i^ods, and it 

 is somewhat curious to note that the larvre of both of them are not 

 infrequently found infesting the same pod. One of these species 

 belongs to the genus Cecidomyia, while the other pertains to the closely 

 related genus, Biplosis. 



On July 7, 1893, Mrs. Celia Thaxter sent the Department a package 

 of Iceland poppies {Fapaver nudicaule) the stems of which were infested 

 with pale, rose-colored cecidomyiid larvfe; these occurred in consider- 

 able numbers in the interior of the plants near the roots. The plants 

 were from Mrs. Thaxter's famous garden on the Isles of Shoals, off" the 

 coast from Portsmouth, N. H. 



In the ])reeding cages the adults began to issue July 15, and continued 

 emerging up to the 22d of the same mouth. They belong to the genus 

 Diplosis, and clearly represent a new species, which is duly character- 

 ized below. They differ in too many respects from the European species 

 of Diplosis, which also infests the poppy, to be considered identical 

 with it, in addition to the fact that they attack a different part of the 

 plant. The kinds of poppies attacked by these two species are also 

 different, the European species depredating upon Papaver rhocas and 

 P. duhium, while the present species is thus far known to attack only 

 P. nudicaule. 



The fact that it is found to infest an introduced plant would seem to 

 indicate that it likewise is a native of some foreign land and had been 

 imported into this country with its food-plant, were it not for the 

 further fact that with us this plant is almost without exception grown 

 from the seed. 



Diplosis caulicola n. sp. 



Male. — Autenu;c yellow, twice as long as the body, 15-joiiited (or, counting each 

 enlargement a joint, 28-joiuted); the first two joints simple, each of the others with 

 a globose basal and a long median enlargement, the latter constricted slightly 

 before the middle, nearly twice as long as the slender portion on either side of it, 

 the bnlbons basal portion of the joint suboqnal in length to the slender portion iu 

 front of it ; each enlargement bears a whorl of rather long bristlj' hairs, those on the 

 upper side being of nearly the same length as those below. Head black. Thorax 

 yellow, marked with three brown vittre; scutellum yellow, its base brown. Abdo- 

 men wholly yellow; halteres and legs dusky yellow. Wings grayish hyaline, the 

 veins yellow; first vein lying close to the costa, iu which it terminates at three- 

 sevenths of the length of the wing; second vein strongly curved toward its tijv 



