ÜÜL 6 1899 



ON TWO NEW SPECIES OF PHLŒQTHRÎPS. 



BY M. M VTSl'MI It ) . 



Assistant Profe3sor of Eatomology, Sapporo Agricultural College. 



Daring the month of July and August, 1898, the rice-farmers of Japan received 

 great damage from a very tiny insect. The damage was especially severe in the 

 north-eastern part of the Main Island. On close examination I found two species of 

 this insect ; one was sent me by Mr. Kuwagorö Haga of Yamagata, with the informa- 

 tion that great numbers of it were infesting the young ears of the rice plants, causing 

 them to become fruitless ; the other was brought me from Fukushima by Mr. Tetsuzö 

 Goto, one of our college students with the same information as that given by Mr. K. 

 Hag.i. More recently Mr. Toraji Tanaka has briefly written about the latter insect 

 in the Report of the Agricultural Society of Tokyo, No. 204. According to his de- 

 scription, the injuries are entirely restricted to a high-land rice field in the Prefecture 

 of Niigata, and its damages somewhat resemble those the Oicadulid insects are yearly 

 doing to the rice plants. Both species belong to the genus PhlœiAiir.'ps and seem to 

 bo new to science. I named the former species P. oryzrr., and the latter P. japonica. 



Phiœothrips oryzœ, sp. nov. 



Length, 0,9 — 1,2 mm. Type, P. acullata of Fabricius. Body smooth, glittering 

 black ; the two apical joints more or less distinctly reddish brown. H>ad somewhat 

 quadrate, a little narrower toward the front ; disk with many transverse wrinkles. 

 Eyes dark brown, ovate, strongly facetted, remote from the base. Ocelli brownish. 

 Antennae dark yellow, with the two basal and two apical joints fuscous; the 4rth 

 largest, the 3rd inverted conical, the 8th small and somewhat pointed. Abdominal 

 segments gradually increase their width towards the apex, attainning maximum size 

 at the 6th ; but on a profile view the segments 1 and 2 largest, the rest gradually con- 

 verge towards the tip. Pygidium a little longer than the penultimate joint. Head and 

 thorax scarcely haired, with 3 or 4 long hairs on the pronotum. Some short and 

 stiff hairs may be observed at the lateral margin of the abdominal segments, especially 

 from segments 5 — 9, in a slanting direction towards the tip. A number of long 



