August, ’23] 
SCIENTIFIC NOTES 
395 
Macrosiphum pisi has been very destructive at times on vetch and peas in the 
Northwest, an especially severe outbreak occurring in 1918. 
Sadie E. Keen U. S. Bureau of Entomology, Forest Grove, Ore. 
Swarms of Aphids: During the week ending June 9, newspapers and telephone 
inquiries reported that swarms of aphids were present in the cities of Meriden and 
Waterbury, Conn., and on June 8, specimens were received from Waterbury. On 
June 8, Mr. Zappe collected specimens at his home, Mount Carmel, where they were 
so abundant in the air that his little daughter said to him: “Daddy, it’s snowing.” 
During the week ending June 16, similar swarms of aphids appeared in the center of 
the city of New Haven, and the writer observed them on Elm Street on the afternoon 
of June 16. The tops of automobiles and clothes were literally covered with aphids 
and pedestrians were brushing them from their faces. Mr. Rogers of this Depart¬ 
ment states that in Bridgeport swarms of aphids have been present for three weeks, 
and that one day in the city in catching a butterfly he also caught two or three 
hundred of these aphids in the net. Even at the date of this writing (July 3) aphids 
have not all disappeared in New Haven, and this morning Mr. Rogers ran into a 
swarm on Winchester Avenue. It is not certain that all of these aphids were of the 
same species, but those examined seemed to be identical and material submitted to 
Dr. A. C. Baker of the Bureau of Entomology has been identified as Eucerapliis 
deducta Baker, a species described from Maine in 1917 (Journal of Economic Ento¬ 
mology, Vol. X, page 429). Birch is the host of this species and the swarms probably 
came from Betula populifolia, which is abundant around all of these Connecticut 
cities. In 1919, I recorded the presence of swarms of Calaphis betulaecolens Fitch 
(see Journal of Economic Entomology, Vol. 12, page 351) in New Haven, Conn., 
and at first I supposed the swarms of the present season were of that species. A 
microscopic examination, however, showed them to be different. Dr. Baker writes 
that “it is very interesting that this recently described species should become so 
abundant.” 
W. E. Britton 
A Note on the Life History of the San Jose Scale (Aspidiotus perniciosus) in the 
South. It has been the consensus of opinion among entomologists that the winter is 
past by the San Jose scale in a half-grown condition. Numerous observations on 
this part of the insect’s life history in northern latitudes prove this opinion to be well 
founded, however, in the South it has been found that the insect frequently passes 
the winter or parts of the winter as a full-grown adult. In taking data on the results 
of experiments for the control of the San Jose scale on peach trees in Georgia during 
the winter of 1922-23 both crawlers and full-grown females were observed on peach 
twigs during the months of January, February, and March. During these months 
the crawlers were noted to settle down and start the formation of the scale covering 
a few hours after emergence in the same manner as those that emerge during summer 
months. Several years previous both crawlers and full-grown females were observed 
on peach trees in Mississippi during November and December. The first winged 
male to be observed in Georgia during the winter of 1922-23 issued on Mar. 27, 1923. 
All stages of the San Jose scale from the crawling young to the full-grown females 
have therefore been observed each month during the winter in the South, and it is 
evident that in the latitude of the Gulf States the San Jose scale breeds almost con- 
