113 
tinually emerging, and as the gas can not be used oftener than 
every two or three days without damage to the plants, the in¬ 
terim suffices for the flies to emerge and deposit eggs. In some 
experiments with the gas it was noticed that the maggots were 
less abundant after the first week’s operation, including two fumi¬ 
gations, but the effect was never marked enough to be of prac¬ 
tical importance. After two or three weeks of this twice-a-week 
fumigation the treatment had to be discontinued, as the plants 
began to show the poisonous effects of the gas, and the maggots 
soon reappeared in as great abundance as before. Notwithstand¬ 
ing the small benefit so far realized from the use of hydrocyanic 
acid gas for this insect, it may prove to be effective if used from 
the first to the middle of March, or just as the first generation 
of flies is appearing, and while the growth of the maggot is slow. 
Any grower undertaking this March treatment should make con¬ 
tinual close observations to determine just when the flies begin 
to emerge, at which time the gas should be used without delay, 
and twice a week for two weeks thereafter, and once a week for 
the two weeks following. As a rule the flies will begin to emerge 
about a week and a half after the maggots are first found. 
In addition to the fumigation, the plants should be gone over 
carefully every day and the infested buds cut off and burned. 
The: Garde:n Fle:a-hopper 
Hcilticiis citri Ashmead 
( H . bractatus, H. nhleri) 
A short-winged form of this flea-hopper, which is by far the 
most abundant one, might easily be confused with the commoner 
so-called flea-beetle by the casual observer, so closely does it re¬ 
semble that beetle both in looks and leaping ability, its injury also 
appearing much like that of the flea-beetle. This short-winged 
form (Fig. 27, a) is about 1/16 of an inch long, shining black, and 
the wing-covers, which hardly reach the end of the body, are 
sparsely covered with minute scalelike tufts of yellow hair. This 
flea-hopper did much damage to smilax in several greenhouses 
around Chicago in 1908. It punctures the leaves and sucks their 
juices, thus causing a collapse of immediate tissue, and the con¬ 
sequent appearance of small irregular whitish patches over the 
leaf surface not unlike the injury done by thrips. The injury 
to smilax observed, did not perceptibly weaken the plants, but the 
discoloration of the foliage ruined the product for market. 
It has been recorded once before—by Dr. F. H. Chittenden—as 
a pest of smilax in greenhouses (in Ohio), and as attacking chry- 
