180 INSECT MISCELLANIES. 



I am in some measure warranted in my belief, that 

 the insect in question was introduced from France, 

 as an old French gardener who worked in my garden 

 stated that he was well acquainted with the bug, as 

 he termed it, since his childhood, and that it had been 

 the destruction of many fruits, not apples in parti- 

 cular, in the neighbourhood of Montpelier, where he 

 had been brought up.'"* We have ourselves seen 

 the insect in the orchards about Harfleur, in Nor- 

 mandy ; I and M, Blot informs us that it is exceed- 

 ingly destructive to the apple-trees in the department 

 of Calvados. J 



Sir Joseph Banks traced the supposed first ap- 

 pearance of the insect to a nursery in Sloane-street, 

 Chelsea ; and, upon being informed that it was un- 

 known in France, concluded that it was most pro- 

 bably imported from North America, with some apple- 

 trees which had been brought over to that nursery. 

 But, in whatever way it originated, it spread rapidly, 

 though it was at first confined to the vicinity of the 

 metropolis, where it destroyed thousands of trees. § 

 Subsequently it found its way into other parts of the 

 kingdom, and, in 1810, so many of the cider apple- 

 trees in Gloucestershire were infested with it, that it 

 was apprehended the making of cider would have 

 to be abandoned. 



The particular history of the insect is M^ell given 

 by Mr Knapp. ' In the spring of the year,' says 

 he, ^ a slight hoariness is observed upon the branches 

 of certain species of our orchard fruit. As the season 

 advances, this hoariness increases; it becomes cottony, 

 and, toward the middle or end of summer, the under 

 sides of some of the branches are invested with a 

 thick, downy substance, so long, as at times to be 



* Hints on Orchards, p. 39. t J. R, 



I Mem. Societe Linn, de Caen pour 1824, p. 104. 



§ Trans. Hort. Soc. , ii, 162. 



