27 



So far as my own observations extend, the annual 

 and perennial flowers that embellish our parterres and 

 pleasure-grounds seem less exposed to insect depre- 

 dations, than the produce of the kitchen-garden. One 

 of our greatest favorites, the rose, often has its foliage 

 sheared by the leaf-cutter bee, which uses the scal- 

 loped fragments in the fabrication of its patch-w^ork 

 nest. That general despoiler, the rose-bug, which 

 receives its name from its fondness for the petals of the 

 rose, will be noticed in another place. For the extermi- 

 nation of the Jlphides that infest this and other plants, 

 in the garden, the parlour, or the green-house, fumiga- 

 tions and decoctions of tobacco, or solutions of soap, 

 may be used with advantage, as already recommended. 



Housed plants are considerably injured by an oval 

 bark-louse, the Coccus Hesperidum of Linnaeus, which 

 has been introduced from abroad. It looks like an 

 inanimate scale adhering to the plant, and is furnished 

 with a proboscis beneath the breast, through which it 

 draws the sap and deprives the plant of no inconsider- 

 able portion of its nutriment. By piercing them with 

 a pin, they can be made to quit their hold in the early 

 stages of their life ; but later they become immovably 

 fixed, the males in order to undergo their last meta- 

 morphosis, and the females for the purpose of deposit- 

 ing their eggs. The body then hardens and becomes 

 a shell, under which these operations take place. 

 Subsequently the males, which are very small, and 

 furnished with wings, issue backwards from their 

 shells ; but the females perish without acquiring wings, 

 leaving beneath them the eggs, which their lifeless 

 bodies shelter till they are hatched. Another foreign 



