588 INSECT PESTS OF FARM, GARDEN AND ORCHARD 



causing them to curl and drop prematurely to the ground, and 

 from the withering and subsequent dropping of the buds and 

 forming peaches also infested by the aphids at this time. " Similar 

 injury has been reported from Missouri, and doubtless occurs 

 occasionally in other sections. 



Life History. The winter is usually passed in the egg stage 

 on the peach, plum, apricot, nectarine, cherry or other trees, 

 though the wingless females sometimes persist on the summer 

 food-plants where there is sufficient protection to enable them to 

 endure the cold of winter, as in cabbage pits, or in the South. The 

 small, oval, shining black eggs are deposited in the axils of the 

 buds or in crevices of the bark. "The eggs hatch very early 

 in the spring so that the young stem-mothers from them are 

 often almost fully grown before the earliest peach or plum blos- 

 soms open. About the time the buds begin to open on these 

 trees, the stem-mothers are all of a deep pink color and begin to 

 give birth to living young. These young instead of being pink 

 like their mothers are pale yellowish-green throughout their 

 lives, and usually there is a median and two lateral dark green 

 stripes passing over the abdomen. Very few of this brood attain 

 wings. The third generation become very largely winged and 

 begin leaving the trees upon which they were born about the mid' 

 die of May in the peach-growing sections of the State (Colorado). 

 By the middle of June these lice have almost completely left thB 

 trees and may be found establishing their colonies upon various 

 succulent vegetables." The winged females which migrate 

 from the peach are about one-twelfth inch long, with a wing 

 expanse of one-third inch. They are a yellowish-green color with 

 head, antennae, thoracic lobes, honey-tubes, a large spot on the 

 centre of the abdomen, and small lateral spots in front of the 

 honey-tubes are blackish. The wingless females during the 

 summer are pale yellowish and lack the longitudinal green stripes 

 on the abdomen. According to Taylor's observations the 

 spring generations on peach become full grown in about two 

 weeks and an individual aphid lives about a month. In the fall 



* Myzus persicce Sulz. Family Aphididce. (Syn. Rhopalosiphum dianthi 

 Schr.). See Gillette and Taylor, Bulletin 133, Colo. Agr. Exp. Sta., p. 32; 

 C. P. Gillette, Journal of Economic Entomology, Vol. I, p. 359; E. P. Taylor, 

 ibid., p. 83; F. H. Chittenden, Bulletin 2, Va. Truck Exp. Sta., p. 30. 



