BULLETIN 225. 



CURRANT AND GOOSEBERRY APHIDS IN MAINE.* 

 Edith M. Patch. 



During the past ten years several species of plantlice or 

 aphids have been found feeding upon currant and gooseberry 

 in Maine. In the spring, at which time the growing leaves and 

 shoots are particularly susceptible to injury from sap sucking 

 insects, these aphids are most abundant. 



None of these species apparently passes the whole of its life- 

 cycle on currants or gooseberries. Schisoneura uhni {fodiens) 

 winters on the elm and migrates to these bushes for the summer, 

 while with the other species after feeding and multiplying upon 

 these plants in the spring, each develops a winged migrant gen- 

 eration and departs to other vegetation for the summer, re- 

 turning again in the fall to currant or gooseberry for the devel- 

 opment of the generation of true sexes and the deposition of 

 the winter eggs. Comparatively little active damage is done 

 by the fall generation both because the aphids are not so nu- 

 merous then and because the loss of sap to leaves through the 

 season's growth is not so serious a matter to the plant. 



This group of aphids has been both difficult and unsatisfac- 

 tory to deal with. A single collection has frequently contained 

 as many as four species with their innumerable progeny har- 

 moniously feeding in mixed colonies on the same stem and 

 leaves. 



So little has been done with the species affecting Ribes in 

 this country that I have not been able to coordinate the pub- 

 lished fragments, and my own observations do no more than 

 to give disjointed bits rather than to fill out any one life history 



^Papers from the Maine Agrfcnltural Experiment Station : Enlo- 

 mo'logy No. 71. 



