42 CURRANT, 



When the attack has once settled on hirgc Currant grounds, it is 

 most difficult to get rid of it ; but a watchful eye, and prompt measures 

 of extirpation on the first sign of its appearance, will do much to keep 

 it out ; and the following note, with which I was favoured by Mr. J. 

 Wright, Assistant Editor of ' Journal of Horticulture,' gives some very 

 useful suggestions : — " About twenty-three years ago this Mite suddenly 

 took possession of a Black Currant bush in a garden, then in my 

 charge, in Lincolnshire. The next season all the buds were knobbed. 

 The following season it ruined one side of the next bush. I did not 

 know what it was, but saw it was ruinous, therefore chopped the two 

 bushes level with the ground, burned them, and threw a shovelful or 

 two of lime on the stumps and soil. Fresh growths pushed and grew 

 izito bearing, and quite free from the Mite." 



Parasites. — During the past season specimens of two kinds of 

 parasitic insects, found in the Phytoptus galls, were sent to me by Mr. 

 W. Gibbon, of Seaford Grange, near Pershore, Chairman of the 

 Evesham Fruit Growers' Experimental Committee ; and their presence 

 suggests the hope that with the increase of Phi/toptus disease, the 

 increase of Mite-feeding parasites may be following in its train. 



On the 20th of April, Mr. Gibbon wrote me that he remarked that 

 in the Black Currant gall, or knob, a white milky-coloured worm or 

 grub, one-eighth of an inch in length, would be found with Phytopti 

 all about and around it. This grub, Mr. Gibbon noted, he could not 

 find had been observed by others, and he sent me a specimen (with 

 the Phytopti still all about it) carefully secured between two pieces 

 of glass. 



On examination I found that this was certainly the maggot of 

 some kind of two-winged fly (a dipterous larva), and the accompanying 

 circumstances seemed to show clearly that it was not merely a 

 co-tenant feeding together with the Phytopti on the vegetable matter 

 of the bud- gall, but was a carnivorous larva feeding on the Phytojyti 

 themselves. 



Mr. Gibbon had placed the maggot and Phytopti between two glass 

 slides, so carefully fastened together that I had some difficulty in 

 cutting them apart ; there was therefore no reason to suppose that the 

 Phytopti could have escaped ; but on examining for what might be 

 present (before separating the glasses), and both with a two-inch and 

 one-inch power, no Phytopti at all were to be found. After separating 

 the slides, and again examining with a one-inch object-glass, I still found 

 no Phytopti, but I was very much struck by the condition of the fly 

 maggot. Instead of being shrunk and empty, as might have been 

 expected, from starvation during the time of its postal transmission, 

 things were quite otherwise. It was observably swelled out with food, 

 and this not mere juice, but of such a solid nature that I was able to 



