CUKEANT AND GOOSEBERRY SCALE. 



39 



Currant and Gooseberry Scale. Lccanium ribis, Fitch. 



lE.C.K. 



Lecanium eibis. — Currant Bcale, female, showing side and ui^per surface ; larval 

 Scales, with legs still visible : all magnified. Infested Gooseberry twig. 



For several years back notes have been sent from tune to time 

 with specimens accompanying, of a brown Scale insect found to infest 

 branches of Gooseberry bushes to an injurious extent. It was not, 

 however, until the past season (1893) that, through the kind and 

 skilled assistance of Mr. J. W. Douglas, F.E.S., I was able to ascertain 

 the precise species of this Lecanium. 



On the 7th of March, Mr. Douglas wrote me as follows regarding 

 specimens I had forwarded to him for examination : — " The Scales on 

 the Gooseberry are certainly Lecanium ribis, Fitch. They are familiar 

 to me, for when I lived at Beaufort Gardens they were gregarious on 

 the Red Currant bushes, and sometimes on the White Currant ; but I 

 never found they did much appreciable harm. Yet in some places they 

 are very injurious. I have known bushes to be quite exhausted by 

 them, and once I saw an entire bush of Ribes sav(juineum. (the red 

 flowering kind) entirely killed by them. I never saw or heard of them 

 on Black Currant. The male of the species is unknown." . . . '« I 

 sent examples to Signoret, and he agreed that they were the /_.. ribis, 

 Fitch. I doubt, however, if the species has ever been fully described ; 

 i, e., only the external characters have been given." — (J. W. D.) 



The following is the short original note of observation given by 

 Dr. Asa Fitch, of Albany, U.S.A. : — "Currant-bark Louse, Lccanium 

 ribis, n. sp., Homoptera, Coccichc. A hemispherical Scale of a brownish 

 yellow colour, about 0*30 in diameter, adhering to the bark of the 

 garden Currant ; its margin finely wrinkled transversely ; often per- 

 forated with one, two, or three holes, from which have issued minute 

 brilliant green, four-winged flies, which in their larva state have fed 



