REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST I915 87 



by spraying badly infested grassland in early spring shortly after the 

 young grass has started and at least a week before plowing, with an 

 arsenical poison such as sodium, arsenite at a strength recomm.ended 

 on page 60 for the destruction of grasshoppers. This could be 

 applied very cheaply with a potato sprayer and where there is an 

 infestation such as that mentioned above, might easily save replant- 

 ing of the land and possibly a serious loss in yield. 



Spittle insects. The white, foamy masses of " spittle " produced 

 by these small insects are sometimes so comm.on on timothy and 

 other grasses as to result in serious injury to the crop. This was the 

 case in several localities in Dutchess county the past sum.m.er. There : 

 are two rather common and widely distributed spittle insects in 

 this State known as the lined spittle insect, Philaenus 

 1 i n e a t u s Linn., and the European spittle insect, Philaenus 

 spum. arius Linn. The former, so far as the State collections 

 are concerned, appears to be m.uch m.ore com.m.on and abundant, 

 occurring alike in the Adirondacks and in the lower Hudson valley. 

 The iull-grown insect is an inconspicuous, yellowish brown leaf 

 hopper about three-sixteenths of an inch long and with a somewhat 

 definite, yellowish line along the lower margin of each forewing 

 when the insect is in the norm.al resting position. The Etiropean 

 leaf hopper is a somewhat larger species, m.easuring a little over 

 one-fourth of an inch in length and very similar in coloring, except 

 that it lacks the rather distinct line m.entioned above and bears 

 somewhat indistinct, angular markings near the middle of the fore- 

 wings. It seem.s to be m.ore northern in its range, specim.ens in . 

 the State collection being from Adirondack localities only. 



The young of both of these species are yellowish or yellowish 

 green, rather stout and are usually found only by pushing to one 

 side the white, foamy spittle, an excretion supposed to protect the 

 tender, immature insects from the drying sun and wind and pro- 

 duced by the little leaf hopper literally beating air with its " tail " 

 into a viscid excretion. The popular and, in some localities widely 

 current, belief that young grasshoppers inhabit the frothy m.asses, 

 is not supported by facts, the mature spittle insect being quite 

 different from a grasshopper. The eggs are undoubtedly deposited 

 in the stem.s or crowns of various grasses and rem.ain unhatched till 

 the following spring. 



It is well known that old m.eadows are m.ost liable to be badly 

 infested by these insects. Knowing as we do that the young, with 

 their limited powers of locom.otion must hatch in the spring and 



