1921 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 15 



Another interesting peculiarity of the attack was that the blighting of young 

 fruit and twigs, so common in Nova Scotia and at first mistaken there for Pear 

 Blight, was very little, if at all, in evidence on any tree. My first visit to the 

 orchards was on June 25th at which time most of the nymphs were in their last 

 instar and a considerable number had transformed into adults. The second visit 

 was on July 14th when no nymphs were seen but adults were very abundant and 

 though concealed on the twigs could easily be knocked into any receptacle; in 

 fact I caught nearly all mine by tapping the branches and knocking them into 

 my hat. The third visit was on September 10>th. No adults were then present. 



An .examination of the orchard at this date showed that a remarkably large 

 percentage of the apples had outgrown the injury, though some had doubtless 

 dropped off. Only about two per cent, showed any noticeable injuries. These 

 injuries took the form either of deep depressions or of small elevations with a 

 brown, rusty surface. 



Pears had not outgrown the injury but had become worse as they increased 

 in size. In orchards of about an acre in extent the fruit of every variety was badly 

 deformed, apparently over 90 per cent, being knotty or scarred and unmarketable. 

 In the other orchard 50' per cent, were affected. In this latter orchard the injury 

 consisted chiefly of unsightly large and small brown scars on the surface without 

 many deep depressions. The former pear orchard had more of the knotty type 

 of injury with the deep depressions and stone cells; though many surface scars 

 were also in evidence. Hence, it is just possible another Mirid, or some other 

 insect than L. communis was also at work in it. 



In both orchards many specimens of Camptobrochis borealis, a 'brown Mirid 

 slightly larger than L. communis were taken by beating, both species being present, 

 as a rule, in about equal numbers on the same branches. Knight 'says ,this species 

 feeds upon Eosy Aphis of Apple and also upon PhyllapMs fagi on beech trees, but 

 that, while he has never seen it puncturing apples he thinks it might do so when 

 abundant, for when aphids are not present it will subsist on sap from the apple 

 tree. In the case in question there were very few aphids on the apple trees; there- 

 fore it will be interesting to see next year whether we have here, as in the case of 

 Campylomma verbasci, Neurocolpus nubilus and some other Mirids, an example 

 of the changing food habits of an insect. 



All the Mirids referred to so far have attacked either apple or pear or in 

 some cases both, but I wish now to call attention to a species that did much damage 

 to peaches in at least one orchard and to some extent for several years. At St. 

 David's in the Niagara district there is a peach orchard of about six acres, bordered 

 on two adjoining sides by woods, in which are a good many oak trees. About 

 90 per cent, of the fruit on fully half of this orchard, namely all the portion near 

 the oak trees, was so badly scarred by the feeding of adult Mirids that it was 

 unmarketable and not profitable for canning factory purposes because it would 

 all have to be pared by hand instead of by alkali and machinery as is the usual 

 custom. Only a small pant of the affected fruit was knobby for the injury seldom 

 affected the shape of the peach. At my first visit, June 26th, almost every fruit 

 in this portion of the orchard had from one to five or six adults feeding or resting 

 upon it. The species as determined by Knight was Lygus quercalbae, a species 

 that Knight says breeds so far as he knows on white oak only. There is almost no 

 doubt that the adults flew to the peaches from the surrounding oak trees, though 

 I could find very few on oak leaves at the above date. A neighbor stated at the 



