218 FORTT-FOUHTM REPORT ON THE StATE MuSEUM 



in its south-eastern counties, and lias inflicted serious injury to 

 fifrain crops. During the last weeks of June numerous inquires 

 were received of means by which its injury to rye could be arrested. 

 Several of these came from Columbia county, where the attack was 

 apparently more severe than elsewhere. Complaint was also made 

 of its presence on rye in Rensselaer county. At Canaseraga, Alle- 

 gany county, it was reported as attacking oats and barley as soon 

 as they were out of the ground in the spring. At Glen Cove, 

 Queens county, it appeared upon the wheat after it had headed. 

 The aggregate of injury caused by the insect was not large, for in 

 most of the localities the aphis, after passing to the heads of the 

 grain, was attacked by the minute parasites that persistently follow 

 it and insert their eggs within the body of the aphis, thereby 

 insuring its speedy death. Almost every head of grain submitted 

 to me for examination contained the brown and distended bodies of 

 the aphides, indicating their parasitized condition and the probable 

 arrest within a short time, and without much further harm, of the 

 aphis attack. 



The appearance in June last, at Tivoli, N. Y., of the periodical 

 Cicada, Cicada septendecim, although in limited numbers, and so far 

 as known not elsewhere observed, was an event of unusual interest 

 to entomologists. It was thought that all the broods that belong 

 to the more densely populated portions of the United States were 

 definitely known and their limits accurately defined. Of these, six 

 pertain to the state of New York, no one of which was due the pres- 

 ent year. The Tivoli appearance was therefore unannounced and 

 unexpected. It could not be regarded as a residual of the brood of 

 1889, for this only occurs within the state on portions of Long 

 Island, nor as an advance of the well-known Hudson river brood, 

 due in 1894. At the present, it remains as an entomological enigma. 

 Subsequent examinations of records may show it to be the remnant of 

 an unrecognized brood, which in several of its recurrences may have 

 been dwindling in numbers until it is now on the verge of extinction — 

 a result which would naturally follow the clearing up of forest land, 

 and the removal of the natural food of the adolescent insect — the 

 roots of trees and shrubs. 



The field collections of the year, with a few exceptions, were made 

 at Keene Valley, in the Adirondack mountains, during the month 

 of July and part of August. The season was not abundant in insect 

 life. The usual profitable method of night collecting by the aid of 

 a lantern, known as " sugaring," which in former years had yielded 

 such large and valuable returns, gave nothing of particular value. 



