114 



FIFTH ANNUAL BEPORT 



[The above account of this new and injurious bug was sent, with 

 other matter, on the first of July last, to Mr. Alfred Gray, Secretary 

 of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture, for publication in the 

 Transactions of said Board, where it appears. Since that time I have 

 met with it everywhere in my travels in our own State and in Kansas. 

 Besides the plants above enumerated, it proved in some instances 

 troublesome to strawberry plants, to young apple grafts just as they 

 were sprouting, and especially to turnips and beets. On all the more 

 tender plants enumerated the bugs cluster just as does the genuine 

 Chinch-bug, and cause the leaves to wilt by their suction. Late in 

 the fall I found them very abundant, in all stages, collecting under 

 purslane, and they doubtless make use of this spreading and close- 

 fitting weed for winter quarters. At some of the fall meetings of the 

 Meramec Horticultural Society, complaints were made of a new habit 

 which the Chinch-bug had of injuring potato vines, and of crowding 

 on the tubers and injuring them after they were dug. The False 

 Chinch-bug was undoubtedly the insect observed.] 



INSECTS INJURIOUS TO THE GRAPE-VINE. 



THE GRAPE-VINE AYFLE-GALL — Vitis povmvi Walsh & Riley. 



(Ord. DiPTEEA, Fam. Cecidomyid^.) 



Besides the leaf-gall caused by 

 the Grape Phylloxera, the Grape- 

 vine is subject to various other 

 gall-growths or excrescences, the 

 nature of which often puzzles the 

 vine-grower. I shall give an ac- 

 count of four of the most con- 

 spicuous which are found in Mis- 

 souri. They are all caused by 

 Gall-gnats ( Cecidomyidm), the larvae of which are distinguished by 

 being very generally of an orange color; but more especially by hav- 

 ing 0*11 the upper surface, near the head, a horny process known as a 

 breast-bone.* This process is variable in shape, but more often clove- 



*This process is said, by all authors with whom I am acquainted, including Baron OstenSacken, 

 to be ventral, for which reason, I suppose, it has been called the ' ' breast-bone. ' ' I believe myself 

 that it is dorsal . As, however, it sometimes has a good deal the form of the breast-bone, or ' ' wish- 

 bone " of a fowl, the term may be retained, though conveying a wrong idea. These larvaj are also 

 said to difler from all other insect larvas in having fourteen joints. I have examined a great number 

 of Cecidomyidous larvre without being able to make out any such abnormal number, while m many 

 species it is difficult to detect more than twelve and a subjoint. Usually, I have been able to clearly 

 make out thirteen joints and a subjoint, which is the normal number in insects. 



