14 



THE SPRING GRAIN-APHIS OR " GREEN BUG." 



name or address of the sender. A correspondent of the " Country 

 Gentleman," writing over the initials G. C, from Chrisman, Kock- 

 ingham County, Va., about 50 miles west of Culpeper, under date of 

 June 16, 1882, makes this statement: 



Wheat looking well and promising, but there is a little green bug on it that may 

 injure it. This same little green fellow is ruining the oats in this neighborhood, and 

 has already destroyed them entirely in many localities. 1 



It is not at all surprising that Toxoptera and Macrosiphum should 

 have been confused at that time, as the former species was yet 



unknown in the country 

 and its presence could 

 only be determined from 

 winged individuals. In 

 all of the succeeding out- 

 breaks of Toxoptera it has 

 been more or less difficult 

 to separate the wingless 

 individuals of these two 

 species definitely from 

 each other, even experts 

 having been often at fault 

 where there were only im- 

 mature individuals upon 

 which to base a separa- 

 tion. In this connection 

 Mr. B. F. White, writing 

 from Mebane, X. C, Jan- 

 uary 28, 1890, complain- 

 ing of damage at that 

 time to oats in his locality 

 by Toxoptera, specimens 

 of which accompanied 

 his communication, stated that the same insect appeared in 18S2, in 

 May. So, then, it seems quite likely that, while the discovery was 

 first made at Culpeper, Va., the insect occurred over a considerable 

 area of country in Virginia, extending southward into northern North 

 Carolina (see fig. 2; Diagram I, p. 15). 



From the foregoing it would appear that at this early date there 

 was a more or less destructive outbreak of this pest in the southern 

 Atlantic States. That the species was confined to this area, how- 

 ever, is hardly possible, and indeed it is not beyond possibility that 

 damage to oats may have extended much farther westward, though 

 we have been unable to find definite proof to that effect. The all- 

 important temperature influences are also indicated. 



•= 1864. 

 pa 1862. 



Fig. 2.— Map shoeing the locality from which the spring 

 grain-aphis was received in 1SS2 and the two additional 

 localities where it is probable that it also occurred in inju- 

 rious numbers in that year; also the two localities where it 

 was found in 1584. (Original.) 



i Cultivator and Country Gentleman, vol. 47, p. 498, June 22, 1882. 



