110 
the wheat heads (not many, however, as they were migrating when 
I first saw them); and in that portion of the field, the wheat 
was almost worthless. It appeared to be prematurely ripe, and on 
examining the grain it was found to be shriveled and dead. Mr. 
A. B. Copeland, of Walshville, and Mr. Frank Morrison, of Ray- 
mond, went into a wheat field a few days prior to the time I saw 
them, and they found the bugs very abundant. On striking the 
wheat stalks, they would fall from the heads to the ground, from 
two to five from a single head; and the wheat where this was found 
was very poor, much poorer than elsewhere on the same farm. Mr. 
A. T. Weathers, of Walshville, and other farmers here, noticed them, 
and remarked to me that they were injuring their wheat.”  l'rom 
the foregoing we must conclude that it is highly probable that we 
have in this abundant, and wide-spread insect another threatening 
enemy to one of our staple crops. 
To Other Vegetation. 
Its injuries to the raspberry were mentioned by Mr. Holcomb, 
who gave June 10 as the date of its first appearance on the blos- 
soms under his observation. Riley says that it ‘is sometimes so 
plentiful as to render the berries perfectly unsalable by the bed-bug 
aroma wnich it communicates to them, as well as by sucking out 
their juices. Wherever it occurs, the nauseous flavor which it im- 
parts to every berry which it touches will soon make its presence 
manifest, though the little seamp may elude ocular detection.” He 
remarks in another place that it had been sent him with an account 
of its having ruined a crop of raspberries. 
Mr. Saunders, in his ‘‘Insects Injurious to Fruit,” adds the black- 
berry to the list of fruits which it defiles with its disagreeable odor. 
To the pear, the grape, the cherry, and the quince, its mischief con- 
sists chiefly in puncturing the tenderest twigs and leaves, and suck- 
ing the sap, with the necessary effect to hinder their growth, or 
perhaps to shrivel and wither the leaves. It occasionally occurs in 
very large numbers on cherries, ‘‘causing the stems of the young 
fruit to wilt and shrivel. It also attacks the blossoms and leaves, 
but seems to do most damage on the stems.” On the grape it has 
been noted at Alton and at Centralia, a letter from a fruit grower 
there to Mr. Riley, reporting that he had found all the new growth 
of vines planted the preceding fall covered tor a foot or more from 
the ground with the insects, the vines having, as a consequence, an 
unhealthy look. In many instances, also, the under sides of the 
leaves were covered with them. Mr. Holeomb reported that it utterly 
destroyed the blossoms of Coreopsis in his garden; and it also feeds 
and breeds with especial freedom on a prairie plant,—the New 
Jersey tea (Ceanothus americanus). 
REMEDIES. 
No experiments have been made for the destruction of this species, 
and only general recommendations can be offered. Its hard body 
will probably render it insensible to pyrethrum, and, unfortunately, 
the kerosene emulsion is not permissible in the strawberry field at 
a 
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