August 



XL 



A CREATURE endowed with neither lungs nor heart, 

 Farm and stomach nor teeth, might be considered an 

 Garden Pests unequal competitor with man ; yet it is just 

 such a creature that has inflicted, is inflicting, and is 

 likely to go on inflicting serious pecuniary loss upon 

 market gardeners in all parts of the United Kingdom, 

 and has aroused much dissatisfaction amongst care- 

 ful housewives. The creature in question is one 

 of the numerous family of gall-mites (Eriophyidce), 

 and is the agent in the widespread and destructive 

 black currant blight, which was for long attributed 

 to the action of a parasitic fungus. 



The currant-bud mite (Phytoptus ribis) is an ex- 

 tremely minute creature, so small as to be invisible to 

 the naked eye ; but what it lacks in stature it makes 

 up for in numbers, Mr. Newstead having counted in a 

 single bud no fewer than 2748 individuals, besides 

 those obliterated in opening the bud. His experi- 

 ment was made in January ; had it been in March he 

 expressed the belief that the number would have 

 been doubled. Minute as it is, this creature is some- 

 what elaborately constructed, having a head with a 



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