110 



GOOSEBERRY. 



never found they did much appreciahle harm. Yet in some 

 places they are very injurious. I have known bushes to be 

 quite exhausted by them, and once I saw an entire bush of 

 jRihes sanf/idneum (the red fiowerinj:;; kind) killed by them. I 

 never saw or heard of them on Black Currant. The male of 

 the species is unknown. ... I sent examples to Signoret, 

 and he agreed that they were L. rihis, Fitch. I doubt, how- 

 ever, if the species has ever been fully described ; i. e. ouly 

 the external characters have been given." — (J. W. D.) 



H.C.K. 



Lecaniubi ribis. — Currant Scale, female, showing side and upper surface; larval 

 scales, with legs still visible: all niagnitled. Infested Gooseberry twig. 



The following is the short original note of observation given 

 by Dr. Asa Fitch, of Albany, U.S.A. : — " Currant-bark Louse, 

 Lecanium rihis, n. sp., Hoinoptera, Coccidce. A hemispherical 

 scale of a brownish yellow colour, about 0'30 in diameter, 

 adhering to the bark of the garden Currant ; its margin finely 

 wrinkled transversely. . . . This is quite common in some 

 gardens, and I suspect has been introduced into this country 

 with the Currant, although European authors have made no 

 mention of a scale insect as belonging either to this shrub or 

 the Gooseberry. It will be most readily found before the 

 leaves put forth in the spring." * 



In this country this species of scale is to be found on Black, 

 Ked, and White Currant, as well as on Gooseberry bushes, 

 and sometimes is very injurious by sucking away the juices 



* See ' Third Report of Noxious and Beneficial Insects of the State of New 

 York,' by Asa Fitch, M D., Albany, 1859. This account is also quoted by Dr. 

 Signoret in his 'Essai sur les Cochenilles ' (collective edition), vol. ii. p. 624 

 (4G2) ; and this scale insect is just alluded to by Prof. J. H. Comstock in his 

 • Second Iteport of the Department of l<]ntomology of Cornell University Ex- 

 periment Station, 1883,' in which, at p. 135, he refers his readers to the Trans. 

 N. Y. State Agricultural Society, 1856, 427. 



