CONTINENTAL.-Bay Stallion, 15 hands 3 inches, bred by FREDERICK LAWYER, Brownville, Property of HUNGERFORD & WHITE, Adams, Jefferson Co., N. Y. Sire, Bacon's son of Ethan Allen; dam, a buck Messenger mare. Winner of the special ($200) prize at the New York State Fair, at Rochester, 1868.

THIRTEENTH REPORT

ON THE NOXIOUS, BENEFICIAL AND OTHER INSECTS OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.

BY ASA FITCH, M. D., ENTOMOLOGIST OF THE SOCIETY.

[Copyright secured to the author.]

BEAN APHIS, Aphis Rumicis, Linn. (Homoptera. Aphidæ.)

Crowded together in clusters upon the top of the stalks and under side of the leaves of the English bean, the poppy, dahlia, and several other plants, a small black plant-louse with pale shanks, the pupa with a row of mealy white spots along cach side of the back.

This aphis is one of the most pernicious insects of the group to which it pertains. So much notice has been attracted to it in England that in different sections it has there obtained the names of the black dolphin, the collier, and the black fly. It is liable to suddenly become excessively numerous, and when thus multiplied it falls upon plants other than those which it ordinarily infests, and plants which are widely dissimilar in their nature and not at all akin. And it is also liable to suddenly vanish and totally disappear. We are informed by Mr. Curtis (Farm Insects, p. 387) that, "During the summer of 1847 the prodigious swarms of this aphis which suddenly covered the young shoots and under sides of the leaves of almost every plant, so that the surface was blackened by them, was unprecedented, as far as can be ascertained, and it excited the attention of the public generally.

* * * They died in closely packed groups, with their beaks thrust into the leaves, and their wings erect; and possibly were either poisoned by feeding on juices not adapted to their constitutions, or they might have been held fast by the drying of the leaves in which their rostrums were imbedded. * None were observed the fol

*

lowing year." He also states (p. 68) that in the year 1854 this aphis was excessively abundant, everywhere in England. In a communica tion to the Gardener's Chronicle, the last of August in that year (p. 550), he reports that about the beginning of that month there were myriads of this species in the neighborhood of London, and on the

evening of August 1st they were seen in prodigious numbers near Highgate, and soon covered the plants in the gardens, causing considerable mischief to the dahlia buds. They died, however, in two or three days, after some very heavy showers occurred. He further states that they had done great injury to the turnip crops in Yorkshire. A letter from Mr. Lister, with specimens, informed him that hundreds of acres of late sown turnips were almost destroyed by these flies. Mr. L. had five acres which were quite destroyed, and several more that were much injured.

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Hitherto it has been the current opinion of naturalists that every plant had its own parasites—one or more species of plant-lice living upon it and unable to subsist upon any other member of the vegetable kingdom. Linnæus hence supposed it was unnecessary to give any descriptions of these insects, deeming that the several species were amply distinguished by simply naming the plants to which they respectively pertained. But the more accurate researches of the present day have greatly modified this view, and have shown that the same species of aphis is liable to occur upon different plants which related to each other, and which pertain to the same botanical genus, or even to different genera of the same Natural Order. And some species occur which are still more ubiquitous, sustaining themselves upon plants which are quite dissimilar, and which pertain to different Orders. Thus the species of these parasites are now known to be much less numerous than has hitherto been supposed, many of them having received several names in consequence of their occurring upon different plants. We have a notable instance of this in the aphis now under consideration. Establishing itself and subsisting as it does upon quite a number of plants and trees which are more or less dissimilar in their nature, it has confidently been regarded as a distinct species on each of these plants and trees, and has thus received a corresponding number of names. But when we come to fully study the characters and marks which this aphis presents in each of the stages of its development, the exact form and size and colors of the different parts of its body and of each of its several members, the position of the veins in its wings, and especially the peculiar row of flocculent snow-white spots along each side of the back of its pupa, the size and shape and situation of each of these spots, we are furnished with such an assemblage of diagnostics as enables us to clearly recognize this species on whatever plant we meet with it. And, finding them to be identical in such a multitude of particulars, we shall not be able to persuade ourselves they are different species, however dissimilar the

vegetation may be on which they occur to our notice. Mr. Francis Walker, who has investigated this family of insects so thoroughly, in his several notices of the present species (Annals of Natural History, 2d series, vol. 5, pp. 17, 73; Zoologist, vol. 6, p. 2247, and Appendix of vol. 7; and List of Homopterous Insects in the British Museum, p. 981), has shown what a number of names have been given it by different authors. And I make one addition to the list which he has given.

It was first named Aphis Rumicis or the dock plant-louse, by Linnæus, in his Fauna of Sweden, published in 1746. He merely states in connection with this name that it is the aphis of the Rumex Lapathum.

Aphis Cracco, the next name it received, was first given by Linnæus in the tenth edition of his System of Nature, vol. 1, p. 452, published in 1758, as being the aphis of the tufted vetch, Vicia Cracca.

Aphis Atriplicis, the aphis of the garden orache, Atriplex hortensis, was the third name given by Linnæus, in 1761, in the second edition of his Fauna of Sweden.

Aphis Fabæ, the aphis of the bean, Faba vulgaris, appeared in 1763, in Scopoli's Entomology of Carniola, p. 139.

Aphis Geniste, the aphis of the dyer's broom, Genista tinctoria, appeared in the same work with the preceding.

Aphis Acetosa, the aphis of the field sorrel, Rumex Acetosa, was a fourth name given to this insect by Linnæus, in the twelfth edition of his System of Nature, vol. 2, p. 734, published in 1765.

Aphis Aparines, the aphis of the bedstraw, Galium Aparine, was the next name given, by Fabricius, in his Systema Entomologia, p. 735, which appeared in 1775.

Aphis Euonymi, the aphis of the spindle tree or burning bush, Euonymus Europæus, appeared also in the same work, p. 736.

Aphis Papaveris, the aphis of the poppy, Papaver somniferum, appeared in Fabricius's Genera of Insects, p. 303, published in 1777.

Aphis hortensis, on the tops of the garden orache, was published by Fabricius in his Species of Insects, vol. 2, p. 387, which appeared in 1781. He subsequently abandoned this name, becoming assured it was the same insect with A. Atriplicis.

Aphis Vicie was proposed in the same work, p. 390, as a substitute for the Linnæan name Aphis Craccæ.

Aphis Chenopodii, the aphis of the pigweed, Chenopodium album, was published in 1800 by Schrank, in his Fauna Boica, vol. 2, p.

109.