SOME INSECTS AFFECTING THE HOP PLANT. 



By L. O. Howard. 

 THE HOP-PLANT BORER. 



(Hydrcecia immanis Grt.) 



PREVIOUS WRITINGS. 



In the annual report of the Entomological Society of Ontario for 

 1872, Eev. C. J. S. Bethune, on page 33, gave a detailed description of 

 some larvae which he found injuring the hop plant by gnawing the 

 stems at the ground. Canadian entomologists from time to time tried 

 to identify the insect, but it was not until a number of years afterwards 

 that it was proved to be Hydrcecia immanis Grote (fig. 35). 



The Canadian Entomologist for 1880-1882 (pp. 93-96) contains an 

 article by Mr. Charles Richards Dodge, entitled "The hop-vine borer," 

 in which he gave many interesting facts derived from the returns of 



the census for 1879, and 

 showed an annual loss in 

 New York State alone from 

 this insect of $000,000. 

 Mr. Dodge expressed his 

 surprise that he could find 

 little or nothing "in the 

 books" on the subject of 

 the insect, and advanced 

 the opinion that the insect 

 was new and undescribed. 

 He brought together in his 

 article a number of inter- 

 esting notes from corre- 

 spondents relative to the 

 habits of the species, 

 the Entomologica 1 Society of Ontario, 



Fig. 35.— Hydrcecia immanis: a, enlarged segment of larva 

 6, larva; c, pupa; d, adult— natural size (original). 



At the annual meeting of 

 held at Montreal in connection with the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science in 1882, Prof. J. H. Comstock exhibited speci- 

 mens of the adult insect which he had succeeded in rearing from the 

 "hop-grub," and in the American Agriculturist for June, 1883 (p. 275), 

 he published an account of the insect with determination of the species 

 and figures of the larva, pupa, and adult. In the meantime Mr. Daniel 

 Flint, in the Pacific Rural Press, March 18, 1882, gave an account of 

 the insects of the Western hop fields, in which he popularly described 

 this species and gave a short account of its habits. 

 40 



