FOUR-STRTPED PLANT-BUG. 61 



Should this insect ever beeome numerous in any locality, it 

 would have to be destroyed iu some of the ways commonly re- 

 sorted to for caterpillars of this kind, namely : by shaking them 

 from the bushes and crushing them under foot, or dusting the 

 leaves with ashes or lime. 



THE FOUR-STRIPED PLANT-BUG. 



( Capsus ( Phytocoris ) qiiadrivitfatus, Say. ) 

 Order of HETEROPTERA. Family of Capsid^. 



Upon going into my garden on the morning of the seventh of 

 June, my attention was arrested by the blighted appearance of 

 the leaves on some of the currant bushes. Upon examining them 

 they were found to be more or less densely sprinkled with little, 

 dried, somewhat square or angulated spots, not much larger than 

 pin heads Some of the leaves were completely withered, and a 

 number of parsnips which had been left for seed, were found still 

 more severely affected, some whole branches and their leaves be- 

 ing as dead and brown as if they had been severed from the plant 

 for a week. I examined the plants carefully, but could find no 

 adequate cause for the mischief, and I was inclined to think that 

 it was either some kind of blight, or that if any insects had been 

 damaging them, they had run their course and disappeared. I 

 saw on most of the bushes a small number of the pretty, black 

 and yellow hemipterous insect whose name is placed at the head 

 of this article, but they did not seem to be in sufficient numbers 

 to account for the evil. I observed them, however, puncturing 

 the leaves, and upon referring to the American Entomologist, I 

 found on page 246 of the first volume, a notice of these same in- 

 sects having been sent to the editor by Mr. M. B. Bateman, of 

 Painesville, Ohio, with the statement that they were found to be 

 quite injurious to the currant bushes and various kinds of shrubs. 



This is an interesting insect, by adding another to the compar- 

 atively small list of noxious insects belonging to the order of 

 Heteroptera. This list includes the Chinch-bug ( Micropus leu- 

 copterus\ the brown Squash-bug ( Corcus tristis), the large grey 



