182 INJURIOUS INSECTS OF 1904. 



it increases, coupled with the fact that a number may have been 

 present last year and yet not noticed, would account for its seem- 

 ingly miraculous appearance last summer in enormous numbers. 



The spreading from tree to tree could be affected, where trees 

 interlace, by the active young crawling from limb to limb, and 

 further by being carried on the feet of birds. In the opinion of the 

 writer the English sparrow is, in a large measure, responsible for 

 this, for he is pre-eminently now tJie bird of the city and village 

 streets. We must not, however, overlook the agency of insects of 

 various sorts, upon whose bodies the young lice could be easily 

 transported. Prof. Riley, in the First Missouri Entomological 

 Report, comments on this and says, "the copious secretion of honey- 

 dew attracts many honey loving insects, such as bees, wasps and 

 flies, and these without doubt carry many of the restless young 

 larvae from tree to tree. "Spiders, too, are said to assist in this 

 work, and even the beneficial "lady-bird" beetles which prey upon 

 the scale. The wind too, in blowing infested leaves or twigs from 

 one place to another, also plays a part in distributing this insect. 



Ordinarily a strong, vigorous tree can withstand considerable 

 sapping of this sort without being appreciably weakened, but when 

 the pest is as abundant as it has been the past season, their perni- 

 cious work is bound to show, as indeed it did late in the summer, 

 in the sickly appearance of some of the branches of the maples. 



Remedies: If trees are trimmed in winter or early spring, and 

 the cuttings burned, the adult scales on the cuttings, with many 

 thousands of eggs, will be destroyed. The same result would be 

 obtained by pruning and burning in the late summer and fall. 

 Sprayings of kerosene emulsion in the spring and early summer will 

 kill the young lice as they are crawling over branches and leaves, 

 and strong caustic sprays, such as lye, or lime and sulphur, applied 

 in the winter when the trees are dormant, will kill the adult scales 

 and the contained eggs. Spraying a tall tree, however, is difficult 

 and sometimes impossible. When but a few are present on a vine 

 or shrub they may easily be got rid of with a bucket sprayer, or 

 even killed by touching them with kerosene. 



This scale has many natural enemies, both predaceous and 

 parasitic, which unknowingly assist us in our work against it. 



