16 THE SPEIXG GRAIN-APHIS OR " GREEN BUG." 



was common in the fields on volunteer wheat plants in the same 

 locality and also about La Fayette, Ind. In some fields it was ob- 

 served breeding on the young growing wheat throughout the autumn 

 and early winter up to December 13. On the 30th of December it 

 was still to be found alive in the fields, though not in great abundance. 



EARLY RECORDS IN EUROPE. 



The first exact knowledge we have of this insect is its occurrence 

 in excessive abundance about Parma, Italy, in 1847. Five years 

 later, in 1852, Rondani, who described the species during this year, 

 wrote to Prof. Bertoloni under date of June 14, also from Parma, 

 relative to the insect as follows: 



We have in our city an innumerable number of insects of a species of the Aphis 

 genus, of Linnaeus, of the order of Hemiptera. Sometimes and in certain places the 

 number of these insects flying in clouds in the air has been so great as to render them 

 troublesome to people, entering the nose, eyes, and even the mouth, when one can 

 not think how to protect oneself from them. 



Elsewhere in this letter Rondani stated that he had never been 

 able to find it on any but graminaceous plants, where it nestled on 

 the leaves. In commenting on this letter of Rondani, Prof. Bertoloni 

 took occasion to say that " innumerable specimens of the ApJiis 

 graminum Rondani are seen in the streets of the city of Bologna, and 

 these have several times entered my nose and eyes when passing 

 rapidly along the canal of Reno." 



KNOWN DISTRIBUTION IN THE EASTERN HEMISPHERE. 



Besides these occurrences in Italy and Hungary (see fig. 3), in 1884 

 Dr. G. Horvath records an attack on oats in central Hungary, which 

 took place in June, 1883, and 10 years later, in 1S94, Prof. Carl Sajo 

 records a second outbreak among growing oats, also in Hungary. 



Schouteden, in 1906, records the species from Belgium, but gives 

 no further data except that it affects the Graminaceae. 



Under date of October 7, 1907, Mr. H. Xeethling, chief of the 

 horticultural and biological division, department of agriculture, 

 Bloemfontein, Orange River Colony, South Africa, in a letter ad- 

 dressed to the United States Department of Agriculture, stated that 

 the wheat aphis was one of the greatest scourges with which the 

 farmers of his colony had to contend, nearly the whole crop having 

 been destroyed by it for several consecutive seasons. Again, under 

 date of September 28, 1908, the same gentleman stated that the pest 

 had been particularly active that season, it being estimated that 

 more than 50 per cent of the entire wheat crop of the colony had 

 been destroyed by its ravages. This latter communication was 

 accompanied by specimens of Toxoptcra graminum as well as a small 



