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has proved one of the worst of the many difficulties encountered in 
the business. Many fields of berries that promised a large crop up 
to a few days before picking, have been known to wither up and 
disappear so as to be almost total failures.”’ 
“For the last two weeks I have noticed these green insects on the 
berries and have wondered what they were doing, but I did not pay 
much attention to them till last Saturday morning, when I made 
the unpleasant discovery that many of our berries were ‘buttoning’ 
badly. It then occurred to me, for the first time, that these insects 
might be connected with the trouble. I have since examined all our 
fields quite carefully, and have been in several others, both here and 
at Cobden, and I am now quite thoroughly convinced that such is 
the case.” 
“This is a trouble beside which the crown-borer and root-worm 
sink into insignificance, but I do not think any one has thought of 
charging it to insects before. I judge it has already damaged our 
crop to the extent of from five te ten thousand dollars. The weather 
has been quite dry for the past month, which has, I suppose, 
increased the trouble. As I write a fine shower is falling, which 
will, I hope, check further injury for the present.” 
Accompanying this letter was a vial of insects, which proved on 
examination to be all adults and young, in various stages, of Lygus 
lineolaris. In consequence of this information, I spent the time 
from the i7th to the 22d of May in the strawberry fields at Anna, 
Cobden, Villa Ridge and Centralia, thoroughly and carefully 
searching twenty-five different fields, with sole reference to the 
relations of this insect to the injury complained of. The tar- 
nished plant bug was by far the commonest insect in these straw- 
berry fields, occurring in numbers many times exceeding those of 
all the other species taken together, except at Centralia, where the 
dusky plant bug, Dergocoris rapidus, was scarcely less abundant. In 
the strawberry fields at Anna, probably not far from one-tenth 
were adults, most, if not all of them, having recently transformed 
from the pupa; while the remainder were of all stages, from the 
pupa to those just hatched. At Villa Ridge, a somewhat greater 
ratio of adults was noticed, while at Centralia the ratio was not 
especially ditferent. 
Wherever these insects occurred in a strawberry field, they were 
seen only upon the fruit. Even where abundant, there would be 
none upon many of the berries, and upon others from one to three 
or four. Ordinarily, when undisturbed, they seemed to nestle 
between the hull and the base of the berry; and it is probable that 
it was from this point that they abstracted the sap. ‘They were 
quite active in their habits, especially in the heat of the day, the 
adults flying readily, and the young escaping with agility. 
The injury complained of, aid presumably due to the bugs, con- 
sisted of a drying and hardening of the berry before the receptacle 
expanded, leaving the fruit hard and small and black if the injury was 
total, or knobbed at the tip or deformed at one side, if incomplete. 
It was noticed that the seeds upon the affected berries were plump 
and well-filled, on the shrunken parts as well as elsewhere. This 
seems to be a character by which the buttoning of the berries 
