C58 INSECT PESTS OF FARM, GARDEN AND ORCHARD 



dew and curled leaves, and should be applied early, as after the 

 leaves are much curled it is difficult to reach the aphides. 



The Green Peach-aphis f 



This aphid is a European species which has long been known 

 as a pest of peach foliage in this country, where it has become 

 widely distributed. Considerable interest attaches to the species, 

 as it furnishes a striking example of the summer migration of 

 aphides to different food-plants, and a consequent difference 

 in appearance in form and color. During the summer this species 

 feeds upon various vegetables and succulent plants, and is so 

 different in color and form that it has been well known not only 

 as a separate species, but as belonging to a distinct genus. Con- 

 cerning its injury to the peach, E. P. Taylor states: "The 

 peach-growers of Western Colorado have suffered loss from it, 

 from its heavy infestation of the leaves of the trees in the spring, 

 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 aphides 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 w r here 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 

 blossoms 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 



* Myzus persica Sulz. Family Aphididae. (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. 



