PEA THRIPS 239 



and 1899, the Pea crops in Essex were practically 

 spoiled by thrips. 



In most cases of attack from Pea Thrips the 

 haulm of the Peas is fully developed, but flowers and 

 perfect pods are generally wanting, though a few 

 abortive flowers, others with dried calyces and 

 shrivelled petals, and pods with few or no peas in 

 them, but distorted and prematurely dried, are not 

 lacking. In numerous instances of Peas in fields and 

 gardens whole rows of Pea plants are not unusually 

 met with of average growth and apparent health, 

 without perfect flowers and well-formed pods, while 

 sometimes the crop is rendered utterly worthless. 

 The insects causing this disturbance of flower de- 

 velopment and pod formation are so minute as to be 

 scarcely noticed by a casual observer, and if noticed 

 regarded as too insignificant to cause such wholesale 

 mischief. 



The Pea Thrips is about one-twelfth of an inch 

 long, greyish-yellow, without wings ; antennae seven- 

 jointed, hairy, five upper joints yellowish and lower 

 ones black. Eyes red, mouth furnished with a short 

 fleshy sucking apparatus, feet shaped like bladders, and 

 at the end of the body is a reddish-brown ovipositor. 

 Winged specimens are sometimes found on Pea plants, 

 darker in colour, with two pairs of wings with long 

 fringes folded down the whole length, and extending 

 beyond the body. The female places eggs of micro- 

 scopic size close to the midribs of the leaves, from which 

 the larvae come in seven or eight days, and at once 



