41 
FOOD PLANTS. 
This insect has a very wide range of host plants and can on that 
account find fresh food at any season of the year. In this way it is 
enabled to perpetuate itself over vast areas of country and under 
almost every variety of climate. 
Rondani, who first described the species in 1852, gives the following 
list of host plants: Oats (Avena sativa); wheat (Triticum vulgare); 
spelt ( Triticum spelta) ; Arrhenatherum elatius (Avena elatior) ; couch 
grass ( Triticum repens) ; Hordeum murinum; Lolium perenne; Capri- 
61a (Cynodon) dactylon; soft chess (Bromus Jiordeaceus) (mollis); and 
corn (Zea mays). He states also that Toxoptera had been found 
quite abundant upon the foliage of rice (Oryza sativa) and common 
barley (Hordeum vulgare). We find no other references to its being 
found upon rice. In 1863 Passerini adds sorghum (Andropogon sp.) 
and he also observed it on barley. 
Macchiati, in 1882, added the following hosts: Dactylis glomerata, 
Bromus erectus, and B. viUosus (maximus); in 1883 he added Triticum 
viUosum, Avena fatua, and A. harhata; in 1885, Poa annua. 
Del Guercio, in 1906, mentions it as occurring upon buckwheat 
(Fagopyrum esculentum). This is the first and only reference we 
have found in which it has been accused of infesting plants other than 
those belonging to the Graminese. 
Toxoptera was first observed upon wheat and oats in the United 
States. In 1889 the senior author observed it feeding upon rye and 
in 1890 he found it plentiful at Lafayette, Ind., upon Dactylis glomerata. 
In 1907 he found it destructively abundant upon the same grass at 
Midlothian, Va. This infested field was from 4 to 5 miles from wheat, 
oats, or rye fields. In Insect Life, 1 he states that Toxoptera will 
live upon the leaves of all lands of grains, including corn, during 
summer. In 1902 he found Toxoptera feeding upon cheat (Bromus 
secalinus) and rye grass (Elymus canadensis) at Peotone, 111. 
The junior author found it quite abundant on volunteer corn plants 
among oats on April 2, 1907, at Hobart, Okla. A cornfield near a 
badly infested wheat field was found to be suffering also. Mr. C. N. 
Ainslie of this bureau, on April 4 of the same year, at Kingfisher, 
Okla., found a cornfield that was seriously injured by Toxoptera. 
Farmers in Oklahoma were very much disturbed over the prospect 
that the corn also would be swept away by the " green bug," but later 
developments proved that it was not a serious pest to corn. The 
junior author found Hordeum pusillum and Alopecurus geniculatus 
badly infested on April 12 at Kingfisher, Okla., and Agropyron occiden- 
tal was found harboring the pest in large numbers at Hooker, Okla., 
in May. The senior author, Mr. Ainslie, and Prof. E. A. Popenoe, 
i Insect life, Div. Ent., U. S. Dept. Agr., vol. 4, p. 245. 
