80 
found on the petiole of a dead leaf, so loosely placed among the 
hairs that it fell off on handling the plant. This egg was umui&. 
takably that of Lygus, as was shown by comparison with those oh 
tained from the female by dissection. It was slender, cylindrical, 
slightly curved, round at one end, truncate and compressed at the 
other, the longer diameter of this truncate end being three times 
that of the shorter. The angle nearest the concave side of the eg? 
was produced so as to make this outline somewhat sinuate. Tk 
egg was smooth, shining, pale watery yellow, .92 mm. long and i 
.25 mm. in diameter at its widest part. The greatest diameter of 
the truncate end was .22 mm., and the shortest .077 mm. 
The adults were found coupling in the field April 28, on flowers 
of the common cowslip (Caltha palustris), upon which they were now- 
very abundant. They were not noticeably numerous in strawberry 
fields until late in April, when a few were observed, in Union county, 
seemingly attracted by the opening blossoms. At this time they 
were also extremely common upon blooming currant bushes at 
Normal. 
The young of the year first appeared about the middle of April, 
upon strawberry plants at Anna, and were abundant there by the 
3d May. At Normal the species was not found in strawberry fields 
until the 12th May, and these were all adults of the preceding year. 
In pursuance of my recommendation, Mr. F. S. Earle, of Anna, 
made some field experiments upon this species with pyrethrum, ap¬ 
plying it quite thoroughly on one or two of the worst affected areas 
in his strawberry plantation. The pyrethrum used was purchased in 
the market, and was understood to have been effective upon other 
species of insects. It was diluted with from one to three parts of 
flour and applied with a sulphur bellows, first to about half an acre 
of Bidwell plants, when they were a little past their fullest bloom, 
and the application repeated in two or three days over about half the 
area. In each case enough was used to dust the plant quite thorough¬ 
ly. It was also dusted on nearly an acre of Duchess plants, after 
the bloom had mostly fallen. Mr. Earle reported that a day or two 
after the application, he made as careful an estimate as possible of 
the number of plant bugs remaining on the rows which had been 
dusted and on those which had not, and concluded that there were 
from one-half to one-third less on the dusted rows. As this result 
hardly seemed to justify the trouble and expense of application, 
nothing further was attempted. 
I am not able to account for the unsatisfactory results of this ex¬ 
periment as compared with laboratory experiments made the preced¬ 
ing year at Normal and described in my last year’s report, but incline 
to suspect the quality of the pyrethrum. . * 
The fact that the adults are very generally’attracted in great num¬ 
bers to turnips, cabbage, mullein, and other succulent plants in fall 
and spring, makes it possible that the number of the following brood 
in any limited area might be considerably diminished by bordering 
the field with a row of some of these plants as an attraction to the 
adult plant bugs. Those lured in this way might then be destroys 
with pyrethrum in spring. 
