THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



171 



Shortly after my appointment as Entomologist to the Agricul- 

 tural Department I received, amongst a host of letters, one from 

 a gentleman living near Warburton, on the Upper Yarra, Victoria, 

 stating that a small " fly," of which he forwarded specimens, was 

 doing great damage to his potatoes and other green crops. I 

 advised him, as there was no fruit to treat, to use the London 

 purple, by means of a spray ; and this was, I believe, successful. 



The next place I heard of them was from South Gippsland, 

 where they had been destroying green maize, strawberries, &c., 

 &c. The same remedy was used, with a like result. After such 

 an " epidemic " of bugs, I was somewhat unprepared for almost 

 simultaneous reports from Rutherglen, Chiltern, Barnawartha, 

 Mooroopna, Wahgunyah, Corowa, Bacchus Marsh, Sydney, 

 Adelaide, and Brisbane, to the effect that the " same" insects were 

 there, and doing a vast amount of mischief I had hoped that 

 the pest would have been local, so that they could be the easier 

 dealt with, if not stamped out altogether. 



In the early part of January of the present year — a month not 

 likely to be forgotten, on account of the great and continued heat 

 — I was requested to visit the Rutherglen and Goulburn Valley 

 districts, and to endeavour to ascertain something of the life- 

 history of the insects ; also, if possible, to discern a remedy for 

 their extirpation. 



I left Melbourne on the same morning as did the members of 

 the Alpine expedition emanating from the Australasian Association 

 for the Advancement of Science, and had the pleasure of their com- 

 pany so far as Wangaratta, where I had, very reluctantly on my part, 

 to take leave of them, as our journeys lay in different directions. 



Arriving at Rutherglen, I was met by Mr. J. Knight, J. P., Inspec- 

 tor of Vineyards for these districts ; and, after luncheon, we started 

 for the vineyard of Mr. Levin, situated some miles from the 

 township. In the buggy we had a triple-nozzle spray pump, 

 benzole, methylated spirit, London purple, Paris green, soft soap, 

 kerosene emulsion, and ihsecticides, all of which I had sent up to 

 Mr. Knight on the previous week. 



Upon arrival at the vineyard, I was perfectly astounded at the 

 numbers of the insects, and the damage done by them. Here 

 were splendid bunches of ripe and ripening grapes, a large 

 number of which were shrivelled up and useless, the juices having 

 been "sucked" out by these destuctive little creatures. I had 

 already determined the insect to belong to a group of the 

 Heteroptera or plant bugs, and after a little time, I, with the aid of 

 my friend, Mr. Oliff, of Sydney, made it out as belonging to the 

 group Lygseidse, and Mr. Oliff thinks it may be one of the genus 

 Rhyparochiomus, but of this we are not yet certain, the Australian 

 collections of the Heteroptera being practically without names, or 

 at any rate the names are not procurable in the colonies. 



