284 MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. I915. 



•cut the state. While the nymphs and adults live upon the blae- 

 berry bushes, they are predaceous in their habits. In nature 

 they probably prey upon the little psocids and spiders which 

 abound on the bushes ; in the laboratory they ate all species of 

 aphids that were fed them. They also ate one another with 

 equal readiness. Fresh leaves and fruit were supplied them in 

 the laboratory, but the writer has no evidence that they take any 

 vegetable food. The eggs are deposited in the fruit of the 

 blueberry, but this seems to be the only way in which this plant 

 is directly concerned in their life cycle, and it is possible that th - 

 eggs may be laid elsewhere as well. The writer has found the 

 eggs in the berries of Vaccinium pennsylvanicum and V. cana- 

 dense. 



SEASONAL HISTORY AND LIFE HISTORY IN THE BLUEBERRY. 



This species hibernates in the adult stage. Oviposition begms 

 at least by June 15. The eggs are deposited indiiterently in any 

 part of the berry, which may be either green or ripe. They are 

 inserted beneath the surface and only the perfectly round white 

 lid of the shell is visible from the outside, fitting snugly into the 

 oviposition puncture and lying in a very slight depression. The 

 t.gg itself is elongate-cylindrical, and is slightly curved. The 

 exposed end is a sort of lid which fits closely into the rest of the 

 egg; when ready to emerge, the insect pushes oft this cap and 

 crawls out, the lid remaining fastened to the &gg shell by a sort 

 of hinge. The tgg is about 2 mm. in length. Rarely 2 eggs are 

 placed in the same berry. 



Eggs may be found from mid- June through the middle of 

 July. Occasionally they are met with in August; these probably 

 represent a partial second generation. An tgg found on June 16, 

 19 1 5, hatched on July 5, and the embryonic period is probably 

 about 3 weeks. 



The writer was unable to rear through to the adult stage any 

 o' the individuals which hatched from the eggs that he collecte'l, 

 for sooner or later they died in molting, becoming hopelessly 

 entangled in the old cuticula. But young nymphs were swept on 

 the blueberry bushes and from these adults were bred which 

 w^ere very kindly determined by Mr. H. G. Barber of Roselle 

 Park, N. J. 



