136 THE SPEIXG GBAIN-APHIS OE ' ' GREEN BT7G. 
>5 
In 1S90 the senior author, at Lafayette, Inch, found that the young 
of the snowy tree-cricket ((Ecanthus niveus De G.) were very fond 
of Toxoptera and fed upon them freely. 
Mr. A. X. Caudell, of this bureau, observed one of the soldier bugs, 
Reduviolus ferns L., attacking Toxoptera on the grounds of the De- 
partment of Agriculture at Washington in 190S. During the same 
year Mr. C. X. Ainslie found a larva of a species of the ladybird genus 
Scymnus at Mesiha Park, X. Mex., attacking Toxoptera, and he 
seems to think that numbers are devoured by this insect. 
In 1909, at Washington, D. C, Mr. R. A. Yickery reared the 
braconid Lipoltxis piceus Cress, in limited numbers from Toxoptera. 
The junior author has at times found a fungous disease attacking the 
aphidids in his rearing cages, but we have never noted this in the fields. 
ANTS AND THEIR RELATION TO TOXOPTERA. 
So far as our observations go Toxoptera is not so attractive to 
ants as are many other species of plant-lice. We have often found 
various species of ants in attendance on Toxoptera. but the relations 
did not appear to be mutually beneficial, the ants nearly always 
gaining the most by such partnerships. 
At Hooker, Okla., in 1907, the junior author found ant burrows 
beside plants in an area badly infested with Toxoptera. In this case 
some burrows were found where the aphidids were slightly below 
ground on plants in these burrows, the ants being busy about the 
aphidids, stroking them with their antenna?. Mr. C. X. Ainslie many 
times observed ants stroking Toxoptera with their antenna?, We have 
found no instances, however, in which ants care for the eggs of Toxop- 
tera in winter, and Toxoptera does not appear to excrete so much 
honeydew as do some other aphidids. This probably accounts for the 
fact that they are not so popular with the ants as are certain other 
aphidids. 
In Texas, during 1909, Mr. T. D. LYbahns found ants busily caring 
for Toxoptera in Iris rearing cages. He also noted that the ants al- 
ways attacked the parasite of Toxoptera (ApMdius sp.) whenever 
they came in contact with it, tearing the larva? out of the old dead 
bodies of Toxoptera and destroying them. 
REMEDIAL AND PREVENTIVE MEASURES. 
With an outbreak of this pest fully established, and the winged 
adults being carried by the winds and scattered over the fields, there 
to settle down and reproduce, the difficulties in the way of control 
are quite insurmountable. 
FIELD EXPERIMENTS. 
The brush-drag experiments that were carried out under the direc- 
tion of the junior author at Hobart, Okla. (see Plate IX, fig. 1), have 
not, with the trials we have given the brush drag, proved satisfactory, 
although Mr. Thos. J. Anderson, Government entomologist of British 
