109 
in Figure 23. This midge is without doubt, when present, the 
worst pest with which the rose grower has to deal. In two Chi¬ 
cago greenhouses the injury by this insect for the past eight or 
ten years is estimated at $10,000 a year. 
In 1900 Dr. Forbes, on being advised of the seriousness of 
this injury by a Chicago florist, directed Mr. C. A. Hart to make 
a preliminary investigation. Later he placed the matter in the 
hands of Prof. F. M. Webster, who visited the infested houses, 
publishing the results of his investigations—which consisted largely 
of systematic and life history studies—in February, 1904, in the 
Bulletin of the State Laboratory of Natural History*. 
This species seems to be distinct from all of the European 
rose cecidomyians, and was described as new by Mr. D. W. 
Coquillett in 1900.$ He reported injury to greenhouse roses simi¬ 
lar to that caused by this species, and probably due to it, in New 
Jersey in 1886 and 1889, in New York in 1890 and 1898, in 
Washington, D. C., in 1891, 1894, and 1896, in Boston in 1894, 
and in Chicago in 1897.t From this it appears that it is of east¬ 
ern United States origin, and that it obtained a foothold in Chi¬ 
cago, doubtless on rose stock received from the East, in the short 
period of eleven years after its discovery in this country. 
Varieties oe Roses Attacked 
• 
At the time Professor Webster made his investigations, the 
only varieties of roses suffering from injury by this pest were 
the Meteor, Wooton, Bride, Madame Chatenay, La France, Ivory, 
Fig. 24. Rose Midge, Neoccratu rhodophaqci: egg in center; larvae 
at left, the lower newly hatched, the upper lull grown; pupa, side 
view, at right. Uength of egg about one seventy-fifth inch, of larva 
one twelfth inch, and of pupa one sixteenth inch. 
*Studies of the Habits and Development of Neocerata rhodophaga Coquil¬ 
lett. Bull. Ill. State Lab. Nat. Hist., Vol. VII, Art. II, pp. 15 - 25 . 1 colored 
plate. 
tTwo New Cecidomyians Destructive to Buds of Roses. Bull. Div. Ent., 
U. S. Dept. Agr., No. 22 , N. S. ( 1900 ), pp. 44 - 48 . 1 figure. 
fLoc. cit., pp. 44 - 46 . 
