So PEAR, 



Black Currant-bud Gall, Phytoptus ribis, Westwood and Nalepa. — ^^ 

 This is the species which is the most hurtful to us of any of the 

 Fhytopti, and we know it generally as a cylindrical Gall Mite, with the 

 abdomen viniformly ringed, with four legs, and multiplying by eggs, 

 and otherwise coming under the description of the genus Phytoptus, 

 of the sub-family Phytoptina, one of the two great divisions of the 

 family of the Phytoptidfe. 



The description of this Gall Mite, and the plate in which it is 

 figured, are in course of preparation by Dr. Nalepa. 



The galls we know only too well, as buds swelled into round or. 

 irregularly shaped growths, sometimes hardly advancing beyond mere 

 small balls of deformed embryo growth, sometimes advancing so far as 

 a slight development of the leaves, or possibly of the flower-buds. 

 Accompanying this gall formation, both within its scales, and more 

 generally dispersed, there are very commonly to be found minute gold 

 coloured round bodies or drops, which would not be worth alluding to 

 excepting for these having been recently brought forward and figured 

 (in this country) as a form of gall caused by the same Gall Mite that 

 forms the distorted bud gall. This I believe to be wholly inaccurate. 

 From the time of my first observation of this Black Currant attack, I 

 have noticed these yellow globules, and never found them to be other 

 than little globules of moisture, neither have I been able on enquiry to 

 find that they had been, on the investigation of other observers, to be 

 anything but little round gold coloured fluid drops. 



One of the earliest of the communications sent me last season was 

 forwarded, with specimens accompanying, on the 7th of April, from 

 Bekesbourne, near Canterbury, by Mr. W. Gardner. In this instance, 

 the fourteen twigs, or lengths of twig.s, of Black Currant were severely 

 beset with the roundish swollen gall growths, caused by the Phytoptus 

 ribis. On one of the shoots which was slightly branched into six short 

 side-twigs, I counted as many as twenty galls in a length altogether of 

 less than twenty inches. The galls were of different sizes, but in a 

 large proportion they were of three-fifths, or more than three-fifths, of 

 an inch in diameter. The Phytopti, or Gall Mites, within were of 

 various stages of growth. 



This attack proved very destructive to the hopes of a fruit crop. On 

 the 2nd of October, Mr. Gardner again sent me specimens (in this 

 instance a large packet), showing what might be certainly described as 

 an overwhelming amount of infested and malformed buds, and the 

 shoots on which these were placed were themselves so stunted and 

 distorted in growth by effects of previous infestation, as to some 

 degree to resemble the condition of Birch twigs, before the Phytoptus 

 growth, known as "Birch-knots," has developed beyond its first stages. 



Mr. Gardner remarked : — " I think I told you that I only gathered 



