120 FLORIDA FRUITS ORANGES. 



activity of the mites and their readiness to climb upon any 

 thing they meet in their path, renders it evident that any 

 living creature which passes from one tree to another is 

 competent to transport the mites with it. The tail feath- 

 ers of birds must sweep thousands from the surfaces of the 

 leaves, and spread them from tree to tree or from grove to 

 grove. 



So readily do they relinquish their hold when brought 

 into contact with a moving body that the point of a needle 

 swept across the surface of an infested leaf will usually be 

 found to have several mites adhering to it. 



The same agencies which assist in the spread of scale 

 insects undoubtedly serve to scatter the mites. Not only 

 do they climb readily along the web of spiders, but they 

 may frequently be seen upon the bodies of the spiders 

 themselves, which do not seem to be at all disturbed by the 

 restless movements of their little attendants. 



The wandering habit of spiders is well known ; their 

 method of bridging great distances by casting out hun- 

 dreds of feet of silken line to be wafted by the winds and 

 caught in distant trees has often been noted. There is 

 little doubt that of all other modes of dissemination both 

 of the scale insect and rust mite, that of transportation by 

 spiders is the most important, the most constant arid regu- 

 lar. The spiders bear with them upon their hairy bodies 

 the young bark lice and the adult mites, conveying them 

 in their own migrations to distant points, and colonizing 

 them under their protecting web whenever they chance to 

 select the leaves of the citrus plant as their resting place. 



And here is found the solution of that puzzling influence 

 of the wind so often remarked in the case of scale insects, 

 and which has led many to believe that they are dissemi- 

 nated directly by this agency, and therefore spread most 

 rapidly in the direction of the prevailing currents. 



