BISTOBY. 
of names. The first reference we find to this species is in M. J. 
Sturm's Catalog Insecten Sammlung, at that date (1826) under the 
name of Colasjris flavescens. Under a later catalogue (1843) by the 
same author it is listed under the name of Fidia lurida Dej. Dejean, 
in his Catalogue des Coleop teres (1837), names two species, Fidia 
lurida Dej. and Fidia murina Dej. 
The genus Fidia was first characterized by Baly in 1803, who used 
the name Fidia suggested earlier by Dejean. Crotch, however, in 
1873, described this insect under the name of F. murina and Lefevre, 
in 1885, described it under F. lurida. In 1892, when Dr. George H. 
Horn revised the Eumolpini of Boreal America, F. murina and V. 
lurida were found to be synonyms of Fidia riticida as described by 
Walsh in 1867.° 
Since 1866, when this insect was first reported as occurring in 
destructive numbers in Kentucky, it has developed into the most 
serious insect infesting vineyards east of the Rocky Mountains. At 
that date only the adult form and its injury to the vine by feeding 
upon the foliage was known. Walsh assumed that the larval habits 
of the pest were similar to those of the grape flea-beetle (Haltica cha- 
lybea 111.), and that it would be found the most destructive in this 
stage feeding upon the foliage. In the former assumption he was 
correct, for it is the injury of the larval form which is inimical to 
infested vines, not upon the leaves, however, as Walsh supposed, but 
upon the roots, as shown by later investigations. The year following, 
the insect was reported from St. Louis and Bluff ton, Mo., and in 
1868 Prof. C. V. Riley, in his first report on injurious and beneficial 
insects of Missouri, mentions it as "the worst foe to the grapevine 
in Missouri." In 1870 specimens were received by Riley from Bun- 
ker Hill, 111., and in 1872 Mr. S. H. Kridelbaugh reported it present 
in Iowa in injurious numbers. 
It was not until 1893, however, that some light was thrown upon 
the earlier stages of the pest. In December of that year Prof. F. M. 
Webster, then entomologist of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment 
Station, received larva? from the vicinity of Cleveland, Ohio, where 
they were said to occur in great numbers about the roots of vines. 
Later there developed from these larvae the complete form which 
proved to be the beetle Fidia viticida, hitherto the only stage of the 
a The validity of the technical name of the grape root-worm (Fidia viticida Walsh) 
might be questioned. The names lurida and murine were used previous to viticida, 
but as nomina nuda; the specific description was first given in lSb'7. when Walsh described 
the insect under the name Fidia viticida. Baly in IStio characterized the genus and 
designated lurida as the type of the genus, though the species under that name had 
not yet been described. The specific name viticida Walsh has the priority, since 
the valid name murina was first used in 1873 by Crotch, and lurida in 1885 by Lefevre, 
both writers using the early manuscript name ol Dejean. 
