8 BEECH. 
not been treated in any way. Some other trees which had been twice 
washed during the winter with an insecticide were found to be much 
cleaner, and it was considered that another similar washing would 
nearly free them. 
In a letter with which I was favoured on April 28th by Dr. William 
Somerville, Professor of Botany at the Durham College of Science, 
Neweastle-on-Tyne, he remarked :— 
‘Thanks for calling my attention to Cryptococcus fagi. The insect 
is very common hereabouts, and, in fact, in most parts of the country. 
It does a lot of damage too, and I doubt if badly infested trees ever 
properly recover, unless artificially assisted by dressings similar to 
those used for the American Blight.” 
The following note from Mr. J. Eardley Mason, written from 
Lincoln on April 22nd, shows this Beech-bark infestation to be found 
near Leeds. Mr. Eardley Mason noted :— 
‘“*Tt was in 1885, as near as I can remember, that in a wood at 
Headingley, or very near to the boundary of that parish, which is a 
suburb of Leeds, I noticed splashes of ‘whitewash’ on Beech trunks. 
Closer examination showed that these splashes were of insect manu- 
facture. I cut off some, and sent them to Mr. J. W. Douglas, who, in 
acknowledging the receipt, gave me the name.”’ 
Other notes of appearance * mention the attack being noticed in 
Dalkeith Park (about six miles from Edinburgh), also in the Ravens- 
worth Woods (near Gateshead, Co. Durham), and on Beech trees near 
Exeter, which altogether give a wide area of distribution in this 
country. 
It has been known under many synonyms, as Coccus fagi, of 
Walker; it was subsequently considered by Dr. Signoret that it should 
be placed in the series of Psewdococcus, where it is accordingly placed 
by Mr. J. W. Douglas in his paper, referred to below, published in 
1886 ; and more recently, after consultation between Prof. Karel Sule, 
of Prague, and Mr. Douglas, it has been placed in the genus Crypto- 
coccus, Douglas, species Cryptococcus fagi, Baerensprung. 
In the paper by Mr. Douglas (see note for reference), he remarks, 
under the heading of Pseudococcus fagi, Baerensprung :— 
** At the end of May last, at Blackheath, I saw on the trunk of a 
Beech tree some forty or fifty years old many white spots of flocculent 
matter protruding through small cracks in the dry black bark, forming 
mostly isolated, short, stout tufts or streaks, but sometimes several of 
them were close together, making conspicuous patches. I cut out 
some of the bark so affected, and found that the flocky matter extended 
under the free edges of the cracks, as it were into the dead or dry 
* For authorities, see paper by J.W. Douglas, F.E.S., on ‘‘ Some British Coccide,”’ 
Ent. Mo. Mag. for December, 1886. 
