40 



GOOSEBERRY. 



upon aucl consumed the minute eggs which originally existed under 

 the Scales. 



" This is quite common in some gardens, and I suspect has been 

 introduced into this country with the Currant, although European 

 authors have made no mention of a Scale insect as belonging either to 

 this shrub or the Gooseberry. It will be most readily found before 

 the leaves put forth in the spring." * 



The method of life of the Scale insect may be described generally, 

 but sufficiently for remedial purposes, as follows. When the soft 

 whitish lobed female, which lies without power of moving within the 

 thin brown Scale, is matured, she produces a multitude of minute 

 eggs, as small as fine dust, which may easily be observed by detaching 

 the sheltering Scale. From these eggs there hatch little flattish oval 

 maggots, which at first have six legs. These spread themselves 

 actively abroad on the boughs, and feed by sucking away the juices, 

 until presently they lose the power of locomotion, turn to the pupal 

 state, and to common observation change in external appearance to the 

 chestnut coloured hemispherical lumps, which are commonly known 

 as " Scale Insects." This thin flexible brown covering shelters the 

 female within ; and the sequence of life-history is well given in the 

 following note of observations sent me, on the 15th of July, from Sea- 

 ford Grange, Pershore, by Mr. Wm. F. Gibbon : — 



" I have closely watched the habits of the ' Bed Scale ' this season, 

 and have verified my observations of last year. The young Scale 

 emerges from the egg early in the spring ; I found them hatched out 

 early in February, at first almost transparent, and walking with free- 

 dom on six legs ; but they soon became of a chestnut colour, and 

 assumed the shape of a small wood louse, flat and oval, and then 

 secured a position by inserting their beak into the bark, and speedily 

 increasing in size. When about three-fourths grown their covering 

 appeared very shiny and sticky, and, later on, dry and harsh. In May 

 I found the Scale matured, and eggs deposited ; and on the 18th of 

 June the eggs hatched, and the young are now on the move, and it is 

 at this stage of their existence to apply washes for their destruction. 

 The young now wandering about will soon affix themselves to the bark, 

 assume a hard covering, and mature ; by autumn deposit eggs, which 

 will hatch next spring. There are consequently two generations in a 

 year."— (W. F. G.) 



* See ' Third Eeport of Noxious and Beneficial Insects of the State of New 

 York,' by Asa Fitch, M.D., Albany, 1859. This account is also quoted by Dr. 

 Signoret in his ' Essai sur les Cochenilles ' (collective edition), vol. 2, p. 624 (462) ; 

 and this Scale insect is just alluded to by Prof. J. H. Comstock in his ' 2nd Report 

 of the Department of Entomology of Cornell University Experiment Station, 1883,' 

 in which, at page 135, he refers his readers to the Trans. N. Y. State Agricultural 

 Society, 1856, 427. 



