WHITE WOOLLY CURRANT SCALE. 75 



bored by the little caterpillars which carae out from the little 

 white cocoons in which they passed the winter. Thus we get 

 rid of a great quantity of infestation which would very shortly 

 have supplied a new brood of moths to infest the Currant 

 fruit with their eggs, and caterpillars hatched from them. As 

 Mr. Wise remarked, relatively to the infestation at Toddington 

 in 1891 : — " The remedy we adopted for this pest was to pick 

 off the infested shoots and burn them, which of course means 

 a lot of labour ; but what else were we to do ?" 



Dr. Chapman's observations of the young caterpillars which 

 come out from the fruit, hiding themselves amongst the dead 

 scales to be found at the bases of buds and fruit spurs, and 

 there spinning a white firm cocoon in which to pass the 

 winter, opens out another method of prevention. We could 

 not very well do anything towards clearing out individually 

 cocoons spun for the accommodation of a caterpillar only 

 about one-twelfth of an inch long ("the young larva on 

 retiring for hybernation is only 2 mm. in length." — T. A. C.) ; 

 but looking over the bushes, and if little white spots were 

 seen, clearing out the old rubbish in which the cocoons are 

 sheltered, would be to some degree practicable. Or an appli- 

 cation of strong soap and mdpliur would do good. 



Whether anything could be done with regard to shaking off 

 the infested and prematurely ripening Currants does not yet 

 appear. In some other kinds of attacks in which, as in this 

 instance, the infesting maggot destroys the seed, the fruit 

 consequently drops, and if this should be the case also with 

 our Incurvaria attack, we might get rid of much of the pest 

 by shaking the bushes, so that the fruit should drop on to 

 cloths, and destroying this before the maggots had time to 

 escape and re-establish themselves on the Currant bushes to 

 form winter quarters. 



White Woolly Currant Scale. Pidvinaria rihedoi, Signoret. 



The presence of the infestation of the White AVoolly Currant 

 Scale is not easily overlooked, from the white woolly or 

 cottony matter which forms the nest of the eggs, and of the 

 young*^ Scale insects in their earliest condition, gradually 

 becoming drawn over the twigs in all directions (see figure, 

 p. 77), so that in the distance the infested branches have the 

 appearance of being scattered over with whitewash. 



This species, the Pidvinaria rihcsice, Signoret, is a kind of 

 attack which has long been known in France, but which was 



