14 
THE SPRING GRAIN-APHIS OR ' ' GREEN BUG. ' ' 
name or address of the sender. A correspondent of the "Country 
Gentleman," writing over the initials G. C, from Chrisman, Eock- 
ingham County, Va., about 50 miles west of Culpeper, under date of 
June 16, 1882, makes this statement: 
Wheat looking well and promising, but there is a little green bug on it that may 
injure it. This same little green fellow is ruining the oats in this neighborhood, and 
has already destroyed them entirely in many localities. 1 
It is not at all surprising that Toxoptera and Macrosiphum should 
have been confused at that time, as the former species was yet 
unknown in the country 
and its presence could 
only be determined from 
winged individuals. In 
all of the succeeding out- 
breaks of Toxoptera it has 
been more or less difficult 
to separate the wingless 
individuals of these two 
species definitely from 
each other, even experts 
having been often at fault 
where there were only im- 
mature individuals upon 
which to base a separa- 
tion. In this connection 
Mr. B. F. White, writing 
from Mebane, N. C, Jan- 
uary 28, 1890, complain- 
ing of damage at that 
time to oats in his locality 
by Toxoptera, specimens 
of which accompanied 
his communication, stated that the same insect appeared in 1882, in 
May. So, then, it seems quite likely that, while the discovery was 
first made at Culpeper, Va., the insect occurred over a considerable 
area of country in Virginia, extending southward into northern North 
Carolina (see fig. 2; Diagram I, p. 15). 
From the foregoing it would appear that at this early date there 
was a more or less destructive outbreak of this pest in the southern 
Atlantic States. That the species was confined to this area, how- 
ever, is hardly possible, and indeed it is not beyond possibility that 
damage to oats may have extended much farther westward, though 
we have been unable to find definite proof to that effect. The all- 
important temperature influences are also indicated. 
Fig. 2.— Map showing the locality from which the spring 
grain-aphis was received in 1882 and the two additional 
localities where it is probable that it also occurred in inju- 
rious numbers in that year; also the two localities where it 
was found in 1884. ( Original. ) 
Cultivator and Country Gentleman, vol. 47, p. 498, June 22, 1882. 
