1 18 



ous scale, and Illinois peach-growers should watch carefully for its 

 advent and take prompt measures for its destruction if it appears. 

 The peach Lecanium {L. niorojasciatiini) has come to me fre- 

 quuentlj of late, on both peaches and plums, as a very conspicuous, 

 almost hemispherical, motionless insect clustered thickly upon the 

 twig-s of infested trees. Its g-eneral color is red, usually quite dark, 

 with blackish spots and bands occupying- a larg-e part of the surface. 

 Sometimes the whole scale is black with the exception of a reddish 

 middle stripe. The surface is shining- and smooth, or nearly so. 

 The scale is a sixth to an eig-hth of an inch in leng-th, and a little 

 narrower, the outline being- slig-htly oval. I have no exact knowl- 

 edg-e of the amount of injury which this scale is likely to cause, but 

 from its size and its abundance on specimen twig-s sent several 

 times to my office I judg-e that it may prove to be a decidedly in- 

 jurious species. 



Common Nursery Scales wintering in the Egg.. 



The Scurfy Scale 



( Chioiiaspis furl lira. ) 



The female of the scurfy scale (Fig-. 8) is a flat, oval, or nearly 



circular, white or g-rayish white scale, beneath which in winter and 



spring a cluster of minute ma- 

 roon-colored eggs may be found. 

 Their color is due to their con- 

 tents, and when one of these 

 scales is crushed a reddish fluid 

 exudes. This alone would serve 

 to distinguish it from others 

 occurring at this season on the 

 apple or the pear. 



The male scale differs by its 

 smaller size and elongated nar- 

 row form, by its whiter color, 

 and by the presence of a ridge 

 or rib running longitudinally 

 down the middle. 



The scurfy scale is almost 

 universally distributed in Illinois orchards, and is very common 

 in a small way in nurseries as well. Many of the better ones 

 are wholly free from it, but perhaps most of them contain it in dis- 

 coverable numbers. It is not seriously injurious to thrifty trees, 

 except where it becomes decidedly abundant, and the efforts of the 

 nurseryman should be addressed, for the present at least, to the re- 



Fig. 8 



/', te- 



I'he Scukkv Scale 

 male and male scales, natural size; c, d, 

 same enlarged. (lioward, U. S. Dept. 

 Agriculture.) 



