30 SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT 



INSECTS INJURIOUS TO THE GRAPE-VINE. 



THE GRAPE FRYLLOXERA—P h/lloxera vastatrlx Planchon. 

 (Subord. HoMOPTERA ; Fani. ArinDiD.E.) 



Having, in my last three reports, had much to say about this insect^ 

 and finding that there is great demand for correct information rela- 

 tive to its nature and habits, and that the fourth Report, more espe- 

 cially, is no longer to be obtained, from the fact that the edition is 

 entirely exhausted, I have concluded to bring into the compass of one 

 article all the facts previously published and recently ascertained, so 

 as to give the grape-growing reader a clear insight into all that i& 

 known of it at the present time. In doing this I shall relegate all thfr 

 more minute details to an appendix at the end of the article, to be 

 referred to by passages numbered to correspond to numbers indicated 

 in the text. 



"Phylloxera" is a term derived from the Greek {4"j)mv^ and ^r^poz)^ 

 meaning withering the leat\ and founded many years ago, * by Boyer 

 de Fonscolombe, to designate a peculiar genus of plant-lice. It was ori- 

 ginally erected for a species (^Phylloxera quercus) quite common in 

 Europe on the under side of oak-leaves which, in consequence of its 

 punctures, wear a withered appearance. The genus now comprises 

 several species, none of them affecting man's interests except the spe- 

 cies under consideration (vastatrix Planchon). This, on account of 

 its injurious work, has acquired such prominence that the generic 

 term has come to be used in a broader sense, and to indicate at once 

 the insect and the disease it produces: just as in botany the term 

 6>iV7zwm, though originally referring only to a genus of cryptogamic- 

 plants, is now popularly employed to designate the mildew on grape- 

 vines, caused by Oidium Tuckeri. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL. 



The first published reference to this insect was made in the year 

 1856,f by Dr. Asa Fitch, the State Entomologist of New York, who 

 subsequently described the gall-inhabiting type of it, which I have 

 termed galloecola,\n a rather insufficient manner, J by the name of 



* Annales de la Societe Entomologique de France, tome lii., p. 22'2. 

 t New York Entomologi&il Report:^, vol. i. , p. 158. 

 J Ibid, vol. iii, §117. 



