-630- 
Plant Quarantine, U. S, D. A. ) 
VETCH BHUC HID 
In North Carolina the eggs of the vetch hruchid "began to appear a week 
later than war the case in 1938. The first eggs were observed on May 11 and 
larvae did not emerge until about -May 20, This was due, it is believed, to the 
unseasonably low temperatures prevailing' during April, In May the known dis- 
tribution of the vetch bruchid in the Eastern States was extended in North 
Carolina into Beaufort, Ponder, and’Wilson Counties and in South Carolina into 
Abbeville, Anderson, Chester, Greenwood, Laurens, and Union Counties. 
r . , ? 
Six shipments of the parasites totrastichus sp. and Trias pis thoracicus 
Curt, were released at Salisbury and Statesville, N. C, In August' operations 
were begun at Carlisle, Pa.; in an attempt to breed the hymenopterous egg para- 
site Trias pis thoracicus in numbers from a stock of 3*000 adults supplied by the 
Division of Foreign Parasite Introduction, using Acanthoscolidbs obtectus Say 
as the host. By the end of September some 26,500 eggs of the latter insect had 
been exposed to paras itization. ‘ 
The discovery of the vetch hruchid in August 1938 in the Willamette Valley, 
Oreg, , occurred at too late a period in the seasonal development of the insect to 
permit a thorough survey for the purpose of delimiting the area of infestation. 
Such a survey was therefore conducted in 1939 in southern Washington and northern 
Oregon by the Bureau, assisted by the experiment stations of both States. The 
following counties were found infested in Oregon: Clackamas, Deschutes, Hood 
River, Marion, Wasco, Washington, and Yamhill; in Washington: Clark, Cowlitz, 
Klickitat, and Skamania. The areas exhibiting greatest abundance of the bruchid 
were Hood River County, Oreg., and Klickitat County, Wash., where volunteer hairy 
vetch was growing abundantly in the orchard districts. West of the Cascade 
Mountains, in proximity to extensive seed-growing areas, B. brachialls was found 
in numbers in eastern Clark County, Wash., and in Multnomah, Clackamas, find 
Washington Counties, Oreg, The infestation in the seed-growing sections of 
western Oregon is still slight and the evidence seems to indicate that infesta- 
tion in the Pacific Northwest originated in the Cascade orchard district near 
Hood River, Oreg., and White Salmon, Wash. Although this is not a s eed-rais ing 
section, vetch ™as extensively used here as a dover crop some years ago, and 
probably European seed carrying the bruchid was introduced at that time. The 
insect thus may have reached the vetch seed-growing ’are'as west of the Cascades 
by natural spread, and it is now distributed thinly over an .area of approximately 
3*000 square miles in that region. The first ’adults were observed this year in 
western Clackamas Countv on April 17. Mating was in progress near Corvallis, 
Oreg., on May 19- and eg^s were being deposited on May 28, Eirst-i'nstar larvae 
were observed on June lb. 
The first indication yet ootained regarding the possible place of hiberna- 
tion of this species was when members of the Bureau staff at Forest Grove, Or eg., 
found adults at Wilsonville, Oreg., on October 13,1939* hidden under lichens and 
mosses on the trunk and main limbs of an oak tree standing on the edge of a 
heavily infested fib Id. Examination of similar locations in the Southeastern 
States had failed to show the presence of hibernating beetles. (W. R. Walton, 
Bureau of Entomology .and Plant Quarantine, U. S. D, A,) 
