572 INSECT PESTS OF FARM, GARDEN AND ORCHARD 



Mexico. Seemingly it is nearly omnivorous, as it attacks almost 

 all of the common garden crops, small fruits, tender shoots of fruit 

 trees and young nursery trees, many flowering plants, and most of 

 our common weeds. It is rather more important as an enemy 

 of pears than on any other crop, causing deformation of the fruit 

 to some extent every year in some of the important pear growing 

 regions. At the same time it is quite as common as a garden pest, 

 attacking a great variety of garden crops. Injury on pears 



by a bug of very simi- 

 lar appearance is re- 

 ported in New York. 

 The bug most prevalent 

 there is called the False 

 Tarnishefa Plant bug 

 (Lygus invitus Say) . 

 Injury by the tarnished 

 plant-bugs to peach has 

 been blamed for a disease 

 known as peach stop- 

 back. Both nymphs and 

 adults injure the plants 

 by sucking out the juices, 

 and on many plants a 



FIG. 506. The tarnished plant-bug (Lygus small black spot appears 

 pratensis Linn.) a, 6, erf, four stages of where the insect has been 

 nymphs; e, adult bug all about four times 



natural size. (After Forbes and Chittenden, feeding, which causes a 



U. S. Dept. Agr.) deformation of the stem 



or leaf, as in the " buttoning " of strawberries, or tends to " blight " 



the terminal as in the case of dahlias, potatoes, and similar 



crops. 



The adult is nearly one-quarter inch long, of a brassy-brown 

 color, marked with black and yellow, and the thorax with red. 

 The color and markings are quite variable. The nymphs feed 

 upon the same plants as the adults and pass through four stages, 

 shown in Fig. 506. The first stage is only one-twentieth inch 

 long and yellowish or yellowish-green. The second stage is 

 about twice as large, and similarly colored, except that there are 

 two pairs of dark spots on the thorax and one on the middle of the 

 third abdominal segment, which grow more distinct in the last two 



