88 LEAFHOPPERS AFFECTING CEREALS, ETC. 
fields, at night, or building bonfires at different points. These insects are readily- 
attracted by light, and great numbers will without doubt be destroyed. One or 
another of the trap lanterns mentioned in that part of this report relating to the cotton 
work could without much doubt be used to advantage if a number were mounted on 
posts in different parts of the fields. 
A green leaf-hopper somewhat larger in size has recently been received from Lau- 
rens, S. C, with an account of its injuries similar to those given of the destructive 
leaf-hopper. It was identified by Professor Uhler as the Biedrocephala flavkeps of 
Riley, a species which did much injury to grain in Texas in 1876. 
Other records in the Bureau of Entomology show it to have occurred 
as follows : 
March 23, 1880, reported swarming in immense numbers at Cookesburg, S. C, on 
wheat fields. 
January 29, 1880, specimens from South Carolina with statement that they were 
doing greftt injury to wheat. 
March 20, 1880, from Laurens, Laurens County, S. C, and from the Charlotte Obser- 
ver, Charlotte, X. C. 
February 20, 1882, from Atlanta, Ga., in great numbers on oats about Albany, Ga. 
October 8, 1895, from Columbia City, Ind., "Myriads of them occur in a wheat 
field." 
February 28, 1880: "When disturbed, they fly 3 or 4 feet and alight. The wheat 
looks stunted and shriveled. Many of the outer leaves are yellow. Ten acres were 
perfectly bare, not one spear per square rod, wheat sown from the 15th of September 
to the 1st of December. Leafhoppers first observed this year Christmas time. Later 
at Charlotte, N. C, in wheat sown November 15, saw that something was the matter 
with the wheat a week or 10 days later — i. e., as soon as wheat was up. It has been an 
unusually warm winter, which had probably allowed the insect to increase." 
May 4, 1889, from J. G. Barlow, Cadet, Mo., larvae, which no doubt belong to this 
species, with report of much damage to timothy meadows which were sown the pre- 
vious fall. 
March 22, 1890, Athens, Ga., injurious to young barley. 
November 15, 1897, Hawley, Okla., infesting wheat, a few of the blades turning 
yellow. 
DESCRIPTION. 
The adult insect (fig. 21, a) for this species is about one-sixth inch 
hi length, the males being somewhat smaller than the females. The 
color varies from dark, nearly black (especially in individuals from the 
Southwest) to grayish- white, the wings especiaUy being almost trans- 
parent but showing very distinct dark veins. The head is broad and 
the body tapers quite distinctly to the tip of the wings, the widest 
part of the body being about one-fourth the distance from head to 
end of body. The eggs which were secured by dissection from an 
adult female are about 1 mm. long and 0.05 mm. thick, distinctly 
enlarged near one end and tapering to a rather distinct, blunt point 
at the other end. They are placed in the leaves or between the 
leaf-sheath and stem of the plant. 
Prof. Comstock states that the young hoppers when hatched are 
almost or precisely the same in appearance as the old ones except 
that they lack the wings. There is, however, a slight difference in the 
position of the spots on the head and in the proportion of the parts 
