1918. | BASHAMBAR Das: The Aphididae of Lahore. 205 
Distribution.—The species is practically cosmopolitan as I have heard of its 
occurrence in Java, while from the plains as well as the hills of India, specially from 
the North, the East and the West, it has been collected by myself. 
The food-plants are the following :—- 
1) Calotropis gigantea. 
) C. procera. 
) Hoya longifolia. 
) Cryptostegia grandiflora. 
) Asclepias sp. 
) Cynanchum dathousie. 
(7) Dragea volubilis. 
( 
(2 
(3 
(4 
(5 
(6 
All the plants belong to the Natural Order Asclepiadaceae. 
It has been found practically throughout the year on all the plants mentioned 
above. 
Dragea, in May, sometimes has all its flower-stalks thickly covered over with the 
insect. It is present again on Hoya in September and October, and December to 
February, and in summer on Calotropis gigantea. 
Systematic.—In Europe the species has been often referred to as Myzus nerii 
(Boyer), but as it has none of the characters of Myzus as the genus is at present under- 
stood, it should be, and now is, rightly called Aphis nerii. ‘The name Myzus nerii 
has been published in Indian Insect Life on the identification of Schouteden. A. 
asclepiadis of Passerini is the same insect, but the name nerii is older, and a cortes- 
pondent has suggested that it might better go under that name, as Aphis nerit (Kalt.) 
is still older and a distinct species. But there is some confusion here in the 
synonymy, and the American authors give the description of A. asclepiadis, which is 
certainly a distinct species. 
A. lutescens, Monell, attacks Calotropis and the Asclepiads, but this again, in spite 
of the name referring to the yellow colour, is entirely a distinct insect. Essig has 
given a description of this insect from California in Pom. Coll. Journ. Ent., vol. III, 
p- 402. 
I think it is best to call it A. nerii (Fonsc).' 
! [Some doubt has recently been cast on the correctness of calling our Aphid an Asclepiadaceae : 
Aphis nerii, Boyer. The question may briefly be put as follows :— 
Passerini (1863) has described a yellow Asclepiad aphis, calling it Myzus asclepiadis. Schouteden 
considered this species to be identical with the yellow Oleander Aphis “ Myzus”’ 
authors have accepted this opinion. But recently Mr. Theobald has pointed out (Bull. Ent. Res., vol. vi, 
1915, p.129) that in his opinion the Oleander Aphis and the Asclepiad Aphis are two quite distinct 
species. As the principal point of difference this latter author mentions, that in Aphis asclepiadis the 
5th antennal joint is shorter than the 4th, while in Aphis nerii the 5th joint is said to be as long as the 
4th. 
This statement, however, is not quite in accordance with the investigations of other authors. 
Mr. Essig, who furnished a very extensive and apparently correct description of the Oleander Aphis from 
California (Journ. Pom. Coll., vol. 3, p.530), mentions that in the apterous female the lengths of the 
nerii, Boyer, and other 
