232 SCALE-INSECTS, BARK-LICE, MEALY-BUGS 
thus be carried for miles. They are often found upon ants, 
and ants, as everyone knows, are great travellers. The diffi- 
culty in moving from one place to another, and the dependence 
upon external agency for their distribution, will account for the 
fact that trees here and there in an orchard newly set out may 
be badly infested, while not a scale will be seen on the trees on 
either side. Few birds or insects visit a young orchard that 
is at all well kept, and the distance between the trees, especially 
if the land is cultivated, is altogether too great to be covered by 
the young lice, even did they know enough to make a bee-line 
for the nearest point. The result is that everything fixes upon 
the tree upon which it was hatched, killing it more rapidly than 
. would otherwise be the case, but at all events confining and pre- 
venting its spread to points not before infested. This also ex- 
plains why nursery stock is so evenly troubled: here the trees 
are grown just as closely together as is possible in rows, and there 
is no hindrance to crawling from one to another. 
As the insects must feed for a time in the spring before at- 
taining their full growth, it follows that only such as are fixed 
to a tree itself have any chance of reproducing their kind. Those 
that fix to the leaves fall with them, and as these dry or decay 
the insect dies for want of food before attaining maturity. Those 
on the fruit are removed when this is ripe. We have thus to 
consider only the wood, free of all leaves and fruit, when at- 
tempting the destruction of the insect. ; 
All our deciduous fruit trees and many forest trees are at- 
tacked by this insect in varying ways. Smaller plants, like cur- 
rants, gooseberries, raspberries, roses, etc., are also to its taste. 
In fact nearly all bushes and trees will support it. 
Like most other insects this scale insect has a number of 
parasites that kill some of them. Large numbers are also eaten 
by such insects as the lady-bugs, and chiefly the smaller kind do 
not despise such a little creature. They are, all combined, but 
a slight check to the increase of an insect that is so prolific and 
has so many generations in the course of a single summer. The 
figures given of the number of offspring in one season are almost 
past belief, but they are based upon actual observation. 
Remedies——A large number of remedies have been tried, 
with more or less good results. As the writer has no experience 
