42 CURRANT. 



chestnut colour, and assumed the shape of a small wood-louse, and 

 then secured a position by inserting their beak into the bark, and 

 speedily increasing in size. 



" When about three-fourths grown their covering appeared very 

 shiny and sticky, and, later on, dry and harsh. In May I found the 

 Scale matured and eggs deposited, and on the 18th of June the eggs 

 hatched, and the young ore now" [July 15th, E. A. 0.] "on the move, 

 and it is at this stage of their existence to apply washes for their 

 destruction. The young now wandering about will soon affix them- 

 selves to the bark, assume a hard covering, and mature ; by autumn 

 deposit eggs, which will hatch next spring. There are consequently 

 two generations in a year." — (W. F. G.) 



Mr. Gibbon mentioned this species of Scale being very destructive. 



In my own observations I found on June 6th female Scales, in 

 most instances full of eggs, on some Gooseberry bushes which had not 

 been much attended to, and by the end of July I found multitudes of 

 young Scales had been hatching, and were noticeable on a bough 

 which had been brought under cover, although on Gooseberry branches 

 exposed to weather, insect attack, &c., out of doors, there was little 

 larval presence to be seen, although there were plentiful remains of 

 egg pellicle. 



It should perhaps be just alluded to for those not acquainted with 

 the life-history of Scale insects, that the brown shiny skin is not the 

 real female, but the coat beneath which she has changed from the 

 early stage to what, to the naked eye, appears a mere lobed, fleshy, 

 greyish lump, containing or surrounded by, according to condition, 

 innumerable quantities of eggs, so minute as to fall, on disturbance, 

 like a shower of white dust. 



Prevention and Remedies. — In regard to checking attack on 

 Raspberry canes (the locality of infestation which has not previously 

 been brought forward) one desirable method would be to cut down the 

 bearing canes of the year as soon as is reasonably possible after the 

 fruit has been cleared. Thus a great amount of the female Scales 

 would be got rid of from the beds, and might be easily destroyed by 

 burning those canes ivhich have fruited. We have not observations as 

 yet of the female Scales being found on the canes of the current year's 

 growth (those that would furnish the bearing shoots of the following 

 season), only of the larvae, the still active Scales in very young state, 

 being found on those, and conjecturally the specimens found will have 

 strayed from what may be described as the family headquarters on the 

 bearing wood. 



So far as I am acquainted with the habits of this species, it appears 

 to me to be unusual that the larvae should be observable in active life 



