272 THE APPLE CULTURI8T. 



altogether. The Oyster-shell Bark Lice are to be dreaded 

 more than any other, as they do greater injury to young 

 trees. This pest is said to be migratory in its habits, often 

 attacking the thriftiest as well as the weakest trees, and its 

 progress should be arrested before it ravages the whole 

 orchard. Bark lice are devoured by millions by wrens, 

 chickadees, and other similar birds ; and " lady-bugs " also 

 destroy large numbers of them. 



The Scale Insect (Hbmoptera) is one of the many ene- 

 mies of the apple, belonging to a family that contains more 

 anomalous forms than any other. All this family are sup- 

 plied with a suctorial mouth, arising so far back on the un- 

 der side of the head as apparently to come from the breast 

 in some species. The present insect is included in the ge- 

 nus Coccus, and has for its near relations some that have 

 been useful to man from the time of the ancients, produc- 

 ing valuable dyes, the cochineal being one of them ; and it 

 is calculated that in one pound of this dye there are 70,000 

 of these little insects. When first hatched from the egg, it 

 possesses considerable ambulatory powers, and can crawl 

 all over a tree and select a situation. It then inserts its 

 rostrum into the tender bark and draws the sap ; and such 

 a constant drain, by the countless numbers found upon a 

 tree, must be very injurious. The insect remains in this 

 position until death, in the female, undergoing its trans- 

 formations, which, instead of producing a higher state of 

 development, as in most other forms, has a contrary effect, 

 it becoming, in fact, a mere inert, fleshy mass, in some al- 

 lied species losing even the rudiments of limbs and all ap- 

 pearance of articulation. The male, on the contrary, which 

 is much smaller, in casting off his pupa skin, obtains pretty 

 large wings, and well-developed limbs, armed with a single 

 claw, and his mouth becomes obsolete ; he then sallies forth 

 in search of his partner, of which he sees nothing but the 



