120 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 84 



impressed by the damage which it was doing that he had no hesita- 

 tion in applying the specific name pcrniciosns to it, since, as he said:. 



From what I have seen of it, I think that it is the most pernicious scale insect 

 known in this country ; certainly I never saw another species so abundant as this 

 is in certain orchards which I have visited. It is said to infest all the deciduous 

 fruits grown in California, excepting peach, apricot, and the black Tartarian 

 cherry. It attacks the bark of the trunk and limbs as well as the leaves and fruit. 

 I have seen many plum and apple trees upon which all the fruit was so badly 

 infested that it was unmarketable. In other instances I have seen the bark of 

 all the small limbs completely covered by the scales. In such instances the wood 

 beneath the bark is stained red. 



In his account he gave the insect the common name of " the per- 

 niciotis scale,'' and the name San Jose scale seems to have originated 

 in California, a term to which the citizens of San Jose have always 

 objected. 



The insect spread along the Pacific coast rather rapidly and was 

 the occasion of much loss, but for years was confined to that part of 

 the country. 



The original home of the species was under dispute for many years. 

 For a time it was thought that it had been introduced by James Lick, 

 from Chile. Years later this was found to be incorrect, and its 

 original home was then attributed to Japan. The question was finally 

 settled by Marlatt, who has shown definitely that its home country is 

 China. Lick imported trees from all parts of the world, and undoubt- 

 edly some from China as Marlatt has shown. It seems rather well 

 proved that its occurrence in Chile and Japan was due to importations 

 from the United States after it had been brought here from China. 



The species was not known to eastern fruit growers until 1893. In 

 August of that year Doctor Hedges, of Charlottesville, Virginia, dis- 

 covered some curious spots on his favorite pears and sent them to 

 Doctor Galloway of the Department of Agriculture, thinking that 

 they were a fungus disease of some kind. Doctor Galloway brought 

 them to me, and I jumped from my chair in excitement on recogni- 

 tion of the fact that the San Jose scale was at last in the East. Men 

 were sent at once to Charlottesville, and an efifort was, made, by the 

 use of oil insecticides, to exterminate the outbreak. In the course of 

 the next few months, however, scales were received from Maryland 

 and Florida; and hence in the spring of 1894 an illustrated warning 

 circular was sent out which resulted in the receipt of specimens from 

 very many localities, and it was found that the dread orchard pest 

 was rather thoroughly established throughout the Eastern States 

 largely from the fact that two firms of nursery dealers in New Jersey 

 had imported infested stock from California; that their nurseries had 



