200 



The Pea Thrips. 



is better to put one pound of fresh lime with the Paris green. 

 This mixture can also be put on with a knapsack machine. 



Spraying should be carried out early in the season before 

 the foliage has become thick and strong. It will be neces- 

 sary to repeat this operation, and it would be effective against 

 both beetles and larvae. 



The Pea Thrips [Thrips Pisivora), 



Complaints were made by pea-growers in Essex in the 

 summer of 1896 of injury caused to pea-plants by an insect 

 said to be a species of Thrips. Some injured pea-plants and 

 specimens of an insect found upon them were received by the 

 Board of Agriculture early in July, 1896, and the insect sent 

 with them proved to be the Pea Weevil, Sitones lineatus^ and 

 not a species of Thrips. 



Again, in July, 1897, information was received by the 

 Board that the Thrips insect was spoiling the pea crop in 

 parts of Essex. No specimens were received, and it was 

 assumed that the Pea Weevil was the offender ; but about 

 the same time injured pea plants were submitted by growers 

 of peas in fields and gardens in Kent which were infested by 

 a species of Thrips. The haulm in these cases was fully 

 developed, and in many instances it was luxuriant (as much 

 of the pea-haulm was in the early summer of this year), but 

 flowers and pods were generally wanting. Here and there 

 a plant was found having a few aborted flowers with dried up 

 calyces and shrivelled petals, and an occasional pod was 

 seen without the sign of a pea in it, distorted and prema- 

 turely browned by the punctures of the Thrips. 



It appeared that the continuous sucking action of numbers 

 of this insect and its larvae had prevented the fructification of 

 the plants, and in most cases had completely arrested the 

 formation of flowers and pods, the insects having arrived on 

 the scene just at the time when the flowers began to form 

 and the haulm was in full vigour. Where the flowers and 

 pods should have been there was a shapeless mass of 



