78 CUKEANT. 



The almost overwhelmirig nature of the infestation, and the 

 serious amount of injury caused by it, is better conveyed by 

 this figure, taken from one of the various samples of attack 

 sent me, than from mere description. 



The egg-like bodies in the wool, when examined at this 

 date (July 2ud), proved to have hatched, and these orange- 

 coloured larvae were dispersing themselves in vast numbers 

 in the box in which the spray of infested Currant sent me by 

 Mr. Mosley was secured. 



These very active young Scale insects (figure 2, p. 76) were 

 whitish or orange in colour, of a flattened oval shape, broadest 

 near the head, deeply cleft at the caudal extremity, with a 

 long hair or filament on each side of the cleft, that is, one 

 long filament placed on each lobe caused by the cleft, and in 

 the centre of the cleft a long cylindrical process. The body 

 somewhat raised along the centre, with slightly indicated 

 corrugations along it, and side ridges from it, and the surface 

 slightly sprinkled with white or woolly morsels. Eyes dark 

 or black. One of the special characteristics by which this 

 species is known is the number and length of the hairs on 

 the antennfe, but in the size figured I have only been able to 

 indicate that hairs are present. 



The attack occurred on Bed and White Currant {Eihcs 

 rubrum) and on Black Currant (Ribes nigrum), and also on 

 the ornamental species (Ribes sanguineum) ; but with the 

 exception of presence of the infestation at Wakefield and 

 Huddersfield, and also at Ballater, which is not very far 

 inland, all of the attacks were observed on or near the sea- 

 coast on the East of Scotland, namely, in the neighbourhood 

 of Banff, Aberdeen, Stonehaven, Arbroath, Edinburgh, and 

 Berwick-on-Tweed. 



In one instance noted by Mr. S. L. Mosley, F.E.S., at 

 Huddersfield, he mentioned a row of forty good-sized Currant 

 bushes against a wall, all of which were more or less infested. 

 " The insects have not been noticed before, and were certainly 

 not there when the bushes were shifted two years ago." 



In the case of specimens of infestation sent me by Mr. 

 Norman, of Cheviot House, Berwick-on-Tweed, he stated 

 that the whole of the Currant trees in the garden from which 

 they were forwarded, whether Bed, White, or Black, were 

 infested, and many of them thickly studded with the woolly 

 nest of the Scale insect. The attack had first appeared five 

 years previously, but was not known to have appeared in any 

 other garden. 



In the observations sent, the species was mentioned as a 

 new infestation, or as one that had been observed two, or five, 

 or six years previously, but not in any case as having been 



