26 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO GARDEN AND ORCHARD CROPS. 



Toads being rather frequently met with, fell under suspicion, and accord- 

 ingly one was captured and was dissected by Dr. Sylvester Judd, of 

 the Biological Survey of this Department, with the result that only a 

 single specimen of this species in its adult condition was found. The 

 toad has been previously recorded as an enemy of this insect by Mr. 

 A. H. Kirkland (Bui. 46, Mass. Agric. Coll., p. 26). The squash bug is 

 evidently not relished by toads, although it sometimes forms a portion 

 of the food of this Batrachian. 



A tame lizard {Sceloporous undulatns) when fed upon squash bugs 

 devoured them readily in spite of the powerful odor which the bugs 

 exhaled. One bug, however, sufficed for a meal. 



None of the eggs that came under observation early in the season 

 were parasitized, but toward the end of the season of the hibernated 

 bugs, two species of parasites were observed. None of the egg clusters 

 gathered for the purpose of rearing the parasites gave out these insects 

 except where the parasites themselves were captured with the eggs. 

 The parasites reared were referred to Mr. W. H. Ashmead who identi- 

 fied them as Hadronotus anasce Ashm. and Ooencyrtus anasce Ashm. 

 The first of these was described uuder the genus Telemomus, and the 

 latter under Encyrtus (see Bulletin No. 14, old series, p. 23). Accord- 

 ing to Mr. Ashmead, 30 per cent of the eggs of this bug collected by 

 him in Florida were parasitized by the Hadronotus. They were reared 

 there in June and July. None of the parasites observed in the neigh- 

 borhood of the District of Columbia issued earlier than the last day of 

 July, and the majority appeared considerably later in August, the last 

 individual issuing August 23. The two parasites ai^pear to have the 

 same seasons, and their arrival on the field, judging from past seasons' 

 observation, is too late to be of any great service. 



The same is true as regards Trichopoda pennipes, the well-known dip- 

 terous parasite of the adult squash bug. Although these flies appeared 

 soon after the advent of the bugs and in considerable abundance, they 

 seemed to accomplish little in the direction of reducing the numbers 

 of their host. The writer's attention was called to the fact that a 

 majority of the parasitized bugs were female, but too late, unfortu- 

 nately, to determine what effect this had upon egg-laying. The para- 

 sitized individuals were not noticed to die much earlier than those 

 which succumbed to natural causes. 



Anasa tristis is credited with having cannibalistic tendencies, but 

 although the writer has had under observation several hundred indi- 

 viduals of this species, this habit has never been noticed. A siugle 

 individual was observed, however, with a dead nymph of Leptoglossus 

 oppositus suspended from its beak. 



August 6, 1898, the writer noticed an individual of Anasa tristis 

 affected by an entomogenous fungus which appeared upon the upper 

 surface of one of the antenna?. It was referred to the Division of Veg- 

 etable Physiology and Pathology, and Mrs. Flora W. Patterson stated 



