OP THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 31 



Pemphigus vitifolioe. Dr. Fitch knew very little of the insect, as we 

 understand it to-da3\ It was subsequently treated of by several 

 American authors, and in January, 1867, Dr. Henry Shimer, of Mount 

 Carroll, 111., proposed for it a new family {DahtylospJKEridcB).^* which 

 has not been accepted by homopterists, for the reason that it was 

 founded on characters of no family value. 



All these authors referred to the leaf-louse described by Dr. Fitch, 

 and never dreamed that the insect existed in another type on the 

 roots. During the iew years following our civil war a serious disease 

 of the Urape-vine began to attract attention in France, and soon 

 caused so much alarm that the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce 

 in that country offered a prize of 20,000 francs for an effectual and 

 practicable remedy ; (1) and a special committee was appointed to draw 

 up a programme of conditions, and award the prize if it saw fit so to do. 



The disease was at first designated as pourrldie^ or rotting, the 

 roots becoming swollen and bloated, and finally wasting away. There 

 were no end of surmises and theories as to its cause, until Prof. J. E. 

 Planchon, of Montpellier, in July, 1868, announced ]: that it was due 

 to the puncture of a minute insect belonging to the plant-louse family 

 (Aphidfdix), and bearing a close resemblance to our gall-louse. The 

 insect was subsequently described, by the same author, from the apt- 

 erous form, under the name of li hie aphis vastatrix, and not till Sep- 

 tember of the same year, |1 when the winged insect was discovered, 

 did he give it the name by which it is now so well known. In Jan- 

 uary, 18C9, Prof. J. O. Westwood, of Oxford, England, announced § the 

 receipt of both the gall and root-inhabiting types, from different parts 

 of England and Ireland, and his inability to distinguish between the 

 two. In the same article he announced having received the gall- 

 making type from Hammersmith in 1863, and having described it by 

 the name of Periiymbia vitisana^ in a notice communicated to the 

 Ashmolean Society of Oxford, in the spring of 1868, which communi- 

 cation was, however, never published. In the spring of 1869,*[ M. J. 

 Lichtenstein, of Montpellier, first hazarded the opinion that the Phyl- 

 loxera, which was attracting so much attention in Europe, was identi- 

 cal with the American insect described by Dr. Fitch. This opinion 

 gave an additional interest to our insect, and I succeeded in 1870, 

 while the Franco-Prussian war was at its highest, and just before the 

 investment of Paris, in establishing the identity of their gall-insect 

 with ours, through correspondence with, and specimens sent to. Dr. 



* Proe^ediug.s Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphiii, Jaimary, 18i>7. 



X Messnger du Midi, July -22, 18GS. 



II Comptes rendus de V Academic des Sciences, Paris, September 14, 18(58. 



§ Gardeners' Chronicle, January 30, 18l>0. VJtisectologie Agricole, 18(ii», p. 189. 



