October, ’18] 
SCIENTIFIC NOTES 
431 
Scientific Notes 
European Potato Wart Disease. Recent advices report the discovery of this 
disease in ten small mining villages near Hazleton, Pa. The Pennsylvania In¬ 
spection Service is cooperating with the Federal Horticultural Board in handling 
the situation. The Pennsylvania horticultural law gives adequate quarantine power. 
Lopidea media, a persistent pest of phlox. For a number of years the writer 
has noticed the phlox plants of certain gardens of Fayetteville, Ark., to be infested 
by a Capsid which Mr. Chittenden has determined for us as Lopidea media. The 
insect seems to occur only in certain gardens but in these gardens it is a very persistent 
pest and makes its appearance every year. This bug causes the tender tips and the 
leaves of infested plants to curl, and the plants take on a sickly yellowish-green ap¬ 
pearance. In some gardens phlox growing has been abandoned because of the bug. 
In 1917 adults of the first generation were found by May 5 though most of the bugs 
were still in their nymphal stages by this time. It would seem that there must be at 
least three generations a year in this latitude. 
Geo. G. Becker, 
Agricultural Experiment Station, Fayetteville, Ark. 
Cannibalism in Euetheola rugiceps Lee.? In some material which was sent 
the writer from Newport, Ark., in 1915 one beetle was observed to have been partly 
devoured by another. The partly devoured beetle had one of its elytra eaten off and 
when it came to the writer’s attention, it consisted of nothing but a hollowed-out, 
chitinized shell. A beetle had its head deeply buried in the back of the dead speci¬ 
men, and was apparently feeding very ravenously as it was separated from the dead 
specimen with difficulty. Whether the partly devoured beetle died en route and 
was subsequently attacked or whether it was attacked while alive cannot be de¬ 
termined. 
Geo. G. Becker, 
Agricultural Experiment Station, Fayetteville, Ark. 
A Second Food Plant for the Cherry Leaf-Beetle. In the recent economic liter¬ 
ature pertaining to the Cherry Leaf-Beetle, Galerucella cavicollis LeC. such as the 
following: 
“Observations on the Life-History of the Cherry Leaf-Beetle, ” by Glenn W. Herrick 
and Robert Matheson, in Journ. Agr. Research, Vol. V, No. 20, Feb. 14, 1916, 
pp. 943-950, and 
“The Cherry Leaf-Beetle,” by F. Z. Hartzell, Bull. No. 444 (Dec., 1917), N. Y. 
Agr. Expt. Station, Geneva, N. Y., statements are made that so far as known, the 
only native food plant of this beetle is the pin cherry, Prunus pennsylvanica L. I can 
add a second. While collecting in the Black Mountains of North Carolina, in July, 
1902, I found this beetle feeding in numbers on the leaves of the fire azalea, Rhodo¬ 
dendron calendulaceum (Mich.) G. Don., and though wild cherry, presumably the 
pin cherry, was found in the neighborhood, did not take it upon that. While at 
Ithaca, N. Y., during the summer of 1917, I took this beetle in great numbers from 
the pin cherry and also found it again feeding on the leaves of a species of azalea. 
The azaleas were not in the neighborhood of any wild cherry trees that I could see. 
Edwin C. Van Dyke, 
Berkeley , Cal., Sept. 3, 1918. 
