[Ill] Report of the State Entomologist. 253 



Remedies and Parasites. 

 The use of salt, of soot, of gas-lime and of several other substances 

 has been proposed as remedies for this insect, but we are compelled 

 to admit that no method has been discovered by which its formidable 

 attack upon a grain crop can be arrested. Fortunately, in nearly 

 every instance when it has abounded, it has been promptly met by 

 hosts of parasites which have done their work so effectually* that if the 

 attack was not at once checked, it was not repeated the second year, 

 or if continued, then ceasing to be serious and soon brought to a close. 

 It is [the particular province of a group of ichneumon flies to feed 

 internally on plant-lice and restrain materially their rapid and 

 prodigious increase. They belong to the family of Braconidce 

 and to the subfamily of Aphidiince — its name indicating the close 

 relationship to the Aphides that it bears. About fifty species of 

 these have been described from the United States and Canada by 

 the three authors who have given them particular study — Mr. 

 Ashmead, Dr. Fitch, and l'Abbe Provancher. The two species that 

 were bred by Dr. Fitch from the grain aphis were named by him 

 Praon avenaphis and Toxares triticaphis — their hosts having occurred 

 on oats and wheat. Curtis, in his Farm Insects, has described Aphidius 

 avence and Ephedrus plagiator which he obtained from the grain aphis 

 in England.f A single one of these parasites entirely fills the body 

 of the aphis, causing it to swell into a globular form. The infested 

 aphis, fastened to the plant, is indicated by this distended form, its 

 sienna-brown color usually, and later by the round opening on the 

 back through which the parasite has emerged. 



Myzus cerasi (Fabr.). 



The Cherry Aphis. 

 Ord. Hemiptera: Subord. Homoptera: Fam. Aphididjs. 



Fabricius : Syst. Ent., 1775, p. 734.4; Spec. Ins., 1781, ii, p. 384.4; Mant. Ins., 

 1787, ii, p. 315, No. 6; Ent. Syst., iv, 1794, p. 211, No. 6 (Aphis). 



Fitch : in Trans. N. Y. St. Agricul. Soc. for 1854, xiv, 1885, pp. 829-833, 836, 

 837; 1st Kept, Ins. N. Y., 1856, pp. 125-128, 132, 133 {Aphis). 



Buckton: Mon. Brit. Aphides, i, 1876, p. 174, pi. 33, figs. 1-5 (Myzus). 



Thomas: 8th Kept. Ins. 111., 1879, p. 75-6 (Myzus). 



Saunders: Ins. Inj. Fruits, 1883, p. 216-7. 



♦Mr. Curtis has written: On some wheat which we examined not a single aphis had 

 escaped the searching vigilance of its enemies, and the husks were spotted with 

 innumerable black globules [the bodies of Aphids which had been parasitized by 

 Ephedras]. Farm Insects, i860, p. 291 . 



tFor notices of other species of Aphidiince, their oviposition, etc., see 1st Report Of 

 Br. Fitch on the Insects of New York, 1856, pp. 134-138, and Buckton's Monograph' of British 

 Aphides, 1879, ii, pp. 151-153 (Aphidivorous Ichneumonidae). For recent descriptions of 

 many new species, see Ashmead, in Proceed. U. S. Nat. Mus., 1888, pp. 656-671. 



