108 TREATISE ON 



Coccus citri. Fn. 722. Pediculus clypeatus. Linn, or differs very little from it. It's a scale 

 bug with a body covered by a skin or thin shell & full of a whitish fluid. The ventral view 

 under the microscope reveals that the insect has six small legs & two horns. The young 

 move about & change their locations. They soon settle down & attach themselves firmly 

 to the leaves & to the bark of the tree by means of very slender threads that originate 

 from the inside edges of the shell. In this state they go through their entire growth, lay 

 their eggs, & then die. The bug's shell dries up and hardens, covering the eggs & a white 

 powder converted from the fluid that previously had filled its body. The eggs hatch at the 

 end of May & in June, & most of the young have settled down by August or even sooner. 

 Ants follow on after the bugs. Their excrement blackens the leaves, branches, & even the 

 fruit and makes them look most unpleasant. To get rid of them, scrape off the affected 

 branches with the back of a knife or rub them with a rough cloth or a brush during the 

 winter or at the beginning of spring before the eggs hatch. Perhaps it would be even 

 better to do it as early as the autumn before the bugs have laid their eggs. Wet the brush 

 in water with some ox gall diluted in it. I've freed orange trees of scale bugs by wetting 

 their tops in a tub of this solution. 



9°. Wasps do a lot of damage to fruit. To cut down their numbers, all the nests that 

 can be found must be destroyed during the night by fire or with boiling water. Or place a 

 pot smeared with honey, or filled with sweetened water, near the trees. 



10°. The usual defenses against dormice, rats, mice, &c, consist of all kinds of 

 traps, a figure 4 [Translator 's note: a trap made by suspending a board or a stone on three 

 sticks put together in the shape of a figure 4], mousetraps, rat traps, and poisoned bait set 

 out with customary precautions. But if one waits until the fruit is ripe, 



