10 
BULLETIN 
U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
writer's mind that if the types of all of the early described species 
now referred to synonymy were in existence to-day and were recog- 
nizable, vaginicola would be found among them. H. vaginicola 
was very probably confused with hordei and secalis as well as tritici. 
The writer's earliest personal records of vaginicola are from col- 
lections from eastern Ohio 
in 1912. Since then he 
has recorded it from 
Michigan, New York, and 
Pennsylvania and has 
been rearing it in confine- 
ment since 1914. Mr. 
Desla Bennion sent the 
writer specimens from 
Salt Lake as early as 1914 
and Mr. L. P. Eockwood 
recently submitted a single 
gall from Oregon, from 
which this species has 
emerged. 
MANNEB OF INJURY. 
H. vaginicola affects the 
plants in a very peculiar 
way, and only one other 
species, namely, atlantica, 
a gall-former in Agropy- 
von sp., is known to the 
writer to affect a plant in 
a similar manner. The 
eggs (fig. 8, a) are depos- 
ited in the tender leaf 
sheath surrounding the 
embryonic head. It does 
not seem possible that the 
insect can always locate 
this delicate structure so 
easily. The result is that 
as the plant grows, the 
leaf sheath surrounding the developing head becomes fleshy and 
thick instead of remaining thin and leaflike. Later this thick- 
ened, fleshy leaf becomes hard and woody and compresses the 
stem to such an extent that little or no sap can reach the develop- 
ing head. Consequently the head usually protrudes only an inch or 
Fig. 8. — Eggs of species of Harmolita : a, H. vagini- 
cola; T),H. secalis; c, H. elymicola; <L,H. maculata ; 
e, H. poae. All greatly enlarged. (Original.) 
