354 



THE AMERICAN 



gus vitifoHce;* but though the specific name 

 must be retained, the insect was wrongly re- 

 ferred to the genus Pemphigus, as we shall pres- 

 ently see. Ten years afterwards this louse was 

 again refeired to by ourselves in the Prairie 

 Farmer for August 3, 186G, and during the fall 

 of the same year articles were written upon it 

 by Dr. Shimer,t and by our late associate, Mr. 

 WalshJ — the former claiming that it was a trae 

 Plant-louse {Aphis family), and the latter that it 

 was a Bark-louse {Coccus family). In this Dr. 

 Shimer was evidently right, and Mr. Walsh 

 wrong. In January, 1867, Dr. Shimer proposed 

 for this insect a new family (DACTYLOSPHiE- 

 KrDiE§), which, in our opinion, cannot stand. 

 But not to weary the general reader with 

 purely scientific questions, we shall presently 

 give, in a short ajipendix, the reasons for our 

 opinion on this point, together with some other 

 details for the benefit of those more immediately 

 interested. 



This louse was subsequently treated of by Mr. 

 Walsh in his report as Acting State Entomolo- 

 gist of Illinois (pp. 21-24), where he still felt in- 

 clined to place it with the Bark-lice, though we 

 have good reason to believe that he afterwards 

 changed his mind. During all this time a 

 serious disease of the roots of the Grape-vine 

 began to attract attention in the south of 

 France, and it finally caused such alarm that the 

 Minister of Agriculture and Commerce in France 

 offered a prize of 20,000 francs for the discovery 

 of an eflicacious and practical remedy. 



A special commission was also appointed to 

 draw up a programme of conditions, examine 

 memoirs submitted to it, settle the experiments 

 to be made, collect evidence from local commis- 

 sions, and, if they saw reason for so doing, to 

 award the prize ofiered by government. The 

 commission consisted of M. Dumas, M. Milne 

 Edwards and M. Duchartre, of the Paris Acad- 

 emy of Sciences ; M, Gei-vais, M. Planchon, M. 

 Henri Mares and M. Louis Vialla, of Montpel- 

 lier; the Comte de Vergue, of Giroude; M. 

 Bedel, of Vaucluse, and three members of the 

 Ministry of Agriculture. 



The disease is known as pourridie, or rotting. 

 It is in the form of little cankerous spots, which 

 cut off the supply of nourishment and cause the 

 roots to rot, and these spots were ascertained 

 by MIVI. Planchon and Lichtenstein, of Montpel- 

 lier, to be caused by a louse {Phylloxera vasta- 

 trix, Planchon), which bears a close resem- 



blance to our gall insect. This is not all, for a 

 leaf-gall absolutely identical with ours also oc- 

 curs there, and the identity of the gall-inhabiting 

 with the root-inhabiting insect was demon- 

 strated by "J. O. W." in the Oardener^s Chroni- 

 cle, of England, for January 80, 1809, and M. J. 

 Lichtenstein even contended that their European 

 species was identical with ours, and imported 

 from this country, in which opinion he ^vas sup- 

 ported by A. Comhe-Dalmas.* 



Of course thefe views expressed in Europe 

 gave increased interest to our own gall-louse, 

 and we determined to make every effort to de- , 

 cide the question of identity, together with some \ 

 other questions which pi-esented themselves. To ] 

 this end we opened correspondence with M. V. 

 Signoret and M. J. Litchtenstein, who were 

 making experiments in France while we were 

 doing the same here. But the blighting effects 

 of the war have not only entailed untold misery 

 and woe to millions in France, but have either 

 pai-alyzed or effectually balked scientific investi- 

 gation within her borders, so tliat at last ac- 

 counts M. Lichtenstein was in Spain, and M. 

 Signoret shut up in Paris. We were, however, j 

 fortunate enough to receive from the latter gen- ^ 

 tleman, a few days previous to the investment of i 

 Paris, a letter stating that upon examination of 

 specimens of our gall-lice, which we had ex- 

 pressed to him, he was convinced of their ident- 

 ity with the European species. This was indeed 

 satisfactory, and, coupled with the facts that we 

 have discovered that our gall insect likewise 

 attacks the roots of our vines in precisely the 

 same manner as does the European species, and 

 that the winged specimens found in this country 

 by Dr. Shimer agree iu having the character- 

 istic dusky band around the middle of the 

 thorax described iu the winged female of Eu- 

 rope, it leaves no doubt in our mind that the 

 insects of the two continents are really identical. 

 As already stated the war put a stop to inves- 

 tigations in France, and we do not know that 

 any effectual remedy was discovered, or that the 

 premium was disposed of. Carbolic acid, and 

 two other substances, namely, sulphuret of lime 

 dissolved in water, and an empyreumatical oil, 

 known among veterinary surgeons by the name 

 of " oil of cade," dissolved in water, were found 

 to be the best specifics ; but neither of them have 

 been tried on a sufficiently extensive scale, and 

 we have little faith in any medicinal remedy. 



The two parties who have written most upon 

 the disease, namely, M. Signoret and M. Lich- 

 tenstein, took entii-ely opposite grounds as to its 

 cause. The former claimed that it had a botau- 



' Imectologie Agricote, 1869, p. 1S9. 



