96 GOOSEBERRY. 



(^Yitb date of day of month) to show various pohits in the 

 method of hfe of the " Eed Spiders." On the 17th of March 

 specimens were to be found moving quite actively on the 

 leafage of the Gooseberry twigs sent me, which were about 

 four or five inches long, with the leafage well forward, and a 

 little of the blossom bud showing. 



On the 19th of March, in a communication from a large 

 Govent Garden firm, it was mentioned : — " We notice the 

 Spider congregates in the crevices of the bark, and when the 

 sun is out seems to get on the leaves ; towards nightfall, 

 again going back to the wood. Some pieces of the wood are 

 literally painted with them. This is on a plot of about fifteen 

 acres, which has been heavily manured every year." 



About the same date in April, amongst specimens sent me 

 from Piifour Castle, Perth, N.B., I found the same kind of 

 "Bed Spiders" in great numbers; some bright red and 

 active, and others congregated in the axils of the veins of the 

 leaves close to the origin of the leaf from the leaf-stalk. This 

 appeared to be a favourite position. 



On the 23rd of May Mr. Francis Nixon (fruit-grower), of 

 Great Eversden, near Cambridge, to whom I was indebted for 

 much careful observation of the infestation, wrote me that 

 he "had seen hundreds of acrec looking ruined by this 

 troublesome pest," and remarked : — "I have been into every 

 fruit-growing district in Cambridgeshire, and everywhere it is 

 the same. Not a single plantation have I found entirely free 

 from it, whilst the ravages in most have been terrible." 



On the '27th of April Prof. Harker, of the Eoyal Agricul- 

 tural College, wrote me from Cirencester regarding the same 

 infestation in a vast appearance on Ivy : — " To-day my boy 

 and I found an amazing phenomenon on the leaves of the wall 

 Ivy, on all the roads and gardens around here. Thousands, 

 millions, of spinning mites ! One leaf, not very big, had over 

 one hundred specimens, and every leaf for almost acres had 

 some. ... I think I never saw such an army of living 

 things." 



_ Later on. Prof. Harker kindly sent me the following addi- 

 tional note relatively to observation of web spun on the 

 infested leafage, which, whilst the attack was only just 

 beginning, I had scarcely been able to find, even doubtfully, 

 and usually not at all, on the sample leaves forwarded to me. 



Prof. Harker wrote me : — "After some weeks the enormous 

 numbers of mites gradually diminishod ; but they left behind 

 them what had not at first been visible, their common webs, 

 covering the whole of the Ivy for quite one or two hundred 

 yards, from the ground to the top of the six-feet wall, and as 

 these webs caught the dust and wind-borne debris of the 



