﻿OF THE STATE ENT03I0L0GIST. 



9- 



"But besides the principal centre of distribution at Rochester, N 

 Y., this Currant worm seems to have been imported from Europe at 

 one or two other points in the Eastern States, and, as at Rochester, to- 

 have spread therefrom as from a focus. Unless our memory greatly 

 deceives us, Mr. Geo. Brackett, of Maine, described this same insect 

 many years ago, as existing in that fetate, though he gave it a different 

 specific name, and was not at all aware that it had been introduced 

 from the other side of the Atlantic. We also heard of it in the summer 

 of 1867, from Mr. A. H. Mills, of Vermont, as being very destructive in 

 his neighborhood. Not improbably, it was independently imported at 

 other points in the East. Wherever it is introduced it spreads with 

 great rapidity, and as there are two broods every year, it soon multi- 

 plies so as to strip all the currant and gooseberry bushes bare and 

 utterly ruin the crop, besides eventually destroying the bushes, unless, 

 proper measures be taken to counteract it." 



According to Dr. Fitch, who, in the article already alluded to, has 

 given a very full account of its spread over the Western States, it 

 kept the bushes so destitute of leaves in most of the gardens at Water- 

 town, N. Y., that in three years they were nearly or quite dead. 



It now occurs in all the New England States, and according to. 

 Mr. Wm. Saunders, throughout Canada from Halifax to Windsor. 



ITS NATURAL HISTORY. 



The perfect insects come out of the ground soon after the leaves- 

 of the current and gooseberry bushes put forth in spring. The female 

 lays her eggs along the principal veins on the underside of the leafy 

 (Fig. 4, 1). These eggs, though but slightly attached, yet increase in 

 IF's- *J bulk after deposition, as is the case 



of ail Saw-fly eggs known to me, 

 when inserted into the plant-tissue. 

 Such swelling has been explained 

 heretofore solely on the principle of 

 endosmosis, and if such were th& 

 only explanation it would strongly 

 argue that the eggs in this instance, 

 'must be slightly inserted in the leaf 

 tissue. Indeed Siebold, in some 

 elaborate observations on this in- 

 sect, which I shall more particularly 

 refer to further on, finding that the 

 eggs shrivelled and died in measure 

 as the leaves upon which they were 

 deposited dried up, investigated the subject very carefully, and 



Imported Currant Worm: — Leaf showing 

 eggs (1), and holes which the young worms 

 make (2, 3.) 



