1 66 



DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS. 



latter part of May. They travel about over the bark for a few 

 hours, and when a suitable place is found to insert their beak, 

 they begin feeding, and never move from the spot during the 

 rest of their life. They soon begin to secrete the scaly cover- 

 ing, which gradually increases in size with the growth of the 

 tender body of the insect underneath. When fully grown early 

 in the fall, the female deposits her quota of eggs under the 

 scale and dies. The male insect is provided with wings, and 



is developed under a 

 much smaller scale 

 (Fig. 222, </). The old 

 scales may remain on 

 the bark for a year or 

 more, and oftentimes 

 the living scales may be 

 so numerous as nearly 

 to cover the bark, as 

 shown in c in Fig. 223. 

 Young trees are often 

 much weakened from its 

 attacks, but it rarely 

 kills apple-trees. 



One should scrape off 

 all of the scales practi- 



FIG. 221. FIGS. 222 and 223. 



The Oyster-shell Bark-louse. 



FIG. 221. Female scale from below, showing 

 eggs. FIG. 222. The same from above, 

 greatly enlarged ; </, male scale, enlarged. 

 FIG. 223 -Female scales. (U. S.Div. of En- 

 tomology.) 



cable when the tree is 

 dormant, thus removing 

 the eggs, which are dif- 

 ficult to reach and kill 

 with any wash. Then 

 wait until about May 

 1 5th, or as soon as the 

 young lice can be seen crawling on the bark, and drench the 

 bark with kerosene emulsion, or a whale-oil soap solution of 

 one pound in five gallons of water, or use a kerosene-water 

 pump with ten per cent, of kerosene. A second application 

 may be necessary a week or ten days later. 



The Scurfy Bark-louse (Chionaspis furfurus) is another scale 

 very commonly met with in orchards, especially on apple and 

 pear-trees. As shown in Fig. 224, it is shaped somewhat like 

 the oyster-shell bark-louse, and has a similar life-history, but 



