53 
“ Another particularity worthy of remark, and which is of paramount interest to us, 
is the resistance which this larva offers to the ordinary means of destruction likely to 
reach it. I have plunged it in water for twenty to thirty minutes, and at different 
times, without being able to kill it. As soon as it had freed itself from all moisture it 
resumed its habitual mode of procedure, and seemed to have lost none of its agility. And 
what is astonishing, acetic acid (concentrated vinegar) and ammoniac acid are equally 
powerless over it. Alcohol, on the contrary, acts on the insect with fatal promptness. 
To kill it, it is sufficient to touch it with the tip of a point which carries a small drop 
of spirits of wine. ‘This property might be made use of in opposing the insect, by 
employing, to wet the leaves of the young canes which are attacked, the fermented 
liquids which it is so easy to obtain in every manufactory. Strongly odoriferous sub- 
stances and oil of naphtha, mixed in small quantities with liquids of inferior quality, 
may also be utilized in the same manner, and render excellent service. The sul- 
' phurous solution which is obtained when a mixture of sulphur and lime is boiled in 
water, would likewise produce a favourable result in destroying the ‘louse,’ if it were 
applied on a large scale. These are different substances, all injurious to the insect, 
capable of easy employment, and to which it is sufficient for me to call attention. 
“T was unwilling to speak of the larva without indicating summarily the means 
which have appeared to me the most suitable for opposing it; because it is at this 
period of its existence that it can be profitably and easily got at; later on, the remedy 
will have lost its chief quality, that of preventing the adherence of the insect to the 
leaf, and the mischief will have already been done. 
“ The Female.—The female is the ‘ white-pouched louse, in the most general and 
common acceptation of the term; it is she, in fact, that has been so designated, and it 
is she only with which the planters are acquainted. She appears at first un the leaves 
of the sugar-cane like a white dot, of a size and transparency such that she escapes a 
rapid examination, even by persons accustomed to recognise her. ‘The hinder half of 
the body is surrounded by a white circle formed by the secretion of the filamentous 
wool which always precedes oviposition and accumulates as the eggs are laid. 
“ Three weeks are generally sufficient for the accomplishment of the laying of the 
eggs. The hatching soon follows; and the young ‘lice, before quitting their nest 
for goud, often return under the roof offered them by their mother, whose body, even 
after death, still shelters and protects them. The feet of the female insect disappear 
or wither away, and later on dry up in coutact with the abdomen, where they may be 
found for a long time in the form of yellow and tough fragments. No trace exists of 
the antenne and tail, and the eyes are indicated only by two very small black dots 
placed on eitber side the head, which merges in the body. The general form of the 
insect is then elliptic, fattened on the abdominal side, and projecting from front to 
rear on the median dorsal line. At its circumference the body, except in the rear, 
where there is a deep slit, is thin and armed with filaments which serve to make it adhere 
firmly to the leaf of the plant. In front these filamentous appendages, to the number 
of four or five, often acquire a considerable length, and are doubtless designed to 
facilitate suction. The mouth is a snout (une trompe), which extends beyond the head 
and bends downwards; I have not been able to analyse the different elements of which 
this snout is formed. The digestive tube, which runs from the mouth, ends in front of 
the posterior abdominal slit in a sort of cloaca, a vast cavity which affords an outlet for 
the excrementitious matters and the eggs. The abdomen is covered with transverse 
folds, which become very manifest, and execute concentric intermittent movements 
