THE VINE-PEST IN ROSSENDALE. 225 
in a small aquarium away from their natural conditions for a few 
days. The most common creature found in the bladders seems to 
be a small entomostracan, called Cypris, which is about the shape 
of an oyster, but moves about very actively. If one of these is 
watched feeding about the tentacles, mouth, and valve of a bladder, 
all goes well until it reaches a spot between the four hairs above 
mentioned and the free end of the valve, then it disappears like a 
flash of lightning, and can at once be seen swimming about in the 
bladder. If a stiff hair is mounted in a handle and the valve 
touched with it, nothing occurs until a certain spot be reached just 
beyond the four hairs before mentioned, when the valve suddenly 
snaps. One valve was lying just out of the water, and this I touched 
with thé hair at the spot before described, when it flew open and 
instantly shut with an audible sound, resembling the discharge from 
an electric machine. It is a curious fact, too, that all the valves 
I tried refused to snap more than once, and not again until after a 
certain time had elapsed, as if requiring, as does the electric 
machine, a renewal of its charge. The snapping sound, too, I 
often heard when handling the plants out of water, when probably 
something touched one of the valves. It would seem as if the five 
or six large glands at the free end of the valve were concerned in 
its sensitiveness, for it is on touching them, or at any rate the valve 
in their immediate neighbourhood, that the movement takes place.” 
SHE VINE-PEST “IN “ROSSENDALE: 
By.j.. G.. Lorp: 
N a recent issue of one of the Manchester evening papers the 
following short paragraph appeared :— “The Phylloxera, an 
insect which has wrought so much devastation in the vineyards of 
France, has just been discovered in the extensive vinery of Mr. 
Alderman Lightfoot, Mayor of Accrington. For a considerable 
time past the vines have ceased to flourish, and Mr. Lightfoot 
spent a very large sum of money in a fresh bed, thinking that his 
old bed might be the cause. The insect is very small, but exceed- 
ingly destructive, and it is feared that the whole of the vines will 
have to be destroyed before the pest can be got rid of” The 
above paragraph, while probably read by the majority of people 
with slight interest, created quite an excitement among the 
gardeners in this locality, more particularly those having charge 
of vineries ; and as I have been consulted in the matter, and have 
examined the vines at one or two places in the neighbourhood, 
resulting in the discovery of the pest, I thought that a short 
account of the insect and its ravages would be of interest to those 
