38 REPORTS OF OBSERVATIONS AND EXPERIMENTS. 



Among orchardists there was, in the spring, great complaint of the 

 work of the buffalo tree-hopper (Ceresa bubalus). Bundles of scarred 

 and blighted twigs were sent to me from many sections of the State, 

 including the Olden fruit farms, in Howell Couuty, the most extensive 

 in the country, and the Flint Hill orchards, in Oregon County, both on 

 the southern boundary of the State; from Kansas City on the west, and 

 from Holt County in the extreme northwest, showing that the insect is 

 by no means local. A considerable proportion of these twigs showed 

 the cuts of several previous years, as well as the more characteristic 

 recent punctures. From this it would seem that the insect remains in 

 the neighborhood of its breeding place until the languishing branch or 

 tree no longer affords it sustenance. Like all haustellate species it 

 can be exterminated only by such insecticides as kill by contact, such as 

 kerosene emulsion, thymo-cresol, and preparations of carbolic acid; 

 and the use of these ou the tender foliage, amid which the little spiny- 

 backed hoppers lurk in the early summer, is apt to have a bad effect. 

 From eggs placed the preceding autumn was bred in considerable num- 

 bers a minute egg parasite, which proved to be an undescribed species 

 of Cosmocoma. This little fly had destroyed the larger proportion of 

 the eggs sent to me, and may in time render its host innocuous. The 

 tree hopper is quite common in the vicinity of St. Louis, but no con- 

 spicuous injury from it has come under my observation. 



A leaf-hopper, Ormenis pruinosa, was remarkably abundant in vine- 

 yards, where it was popularly mistaken for " mealy bug," and caused 

 considerable blighting of leaves and twigs. An interesting parasite, 

 which attacks the full grown larvae and pupae, inclosing them with 

 itself in a convex disk composed of two mica-like plates joined at the 

 edges, was bred from a number of the clusters and determined as an 

 undescribed Dryinus. This parasite is unfortunately rather rare. 



The Osage-orange Pyralid (Loxostege maclurce Riley) is spreading 

 over the State, its work being most disastrous on young hedges, the 

 growth of which it seriously checks. Spraying with Paris green dur- 

 ing the months of June and July has been practiced to some extent in 

 the vicinity of St. Louis, and has been found a reliable remedy. But 

 it is so difficult to secure concerted effort in this direction that the 

 increase of the insect is not materially interrupted. Close clipping of 

 hedges about the 1st of August is also advisable, as at this time a 

 majority of the eggs and newly hatched larvae of the second brood are 

 on the leaves and are, by this process, removed and burned. In the 

 course of a few minutes' examination of some clippings, I found many 

 egg masses and clusters of young larvae, and noted that during the 

 remainder of the season the worms were far less numerous than they 

 had been the previous year when the hedge had been trimmed earlier. 

 Pruning about this time may therefore be relied upon as an important 

 preventive measure. 



