486 FRUIT CDLTURK IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 



mushrooms find congenial soil for growth and do grow very rapidly. 

 To prove the power of this insect to eject to some distance its excre- 

 ment, M. Peragallo confined in a glass insect-case several live speci- 

 mens of the cocus on orange- tree leaves already affected with fumagine. 

 Within twenty-four hours the glass was sprinkled with tiny drops of 

 a viscous liquid, white and transparent, which had evidently been pro- 

 duced by the insects, and which were soon covered with fumagine from 

 germs in the air. For its cure, the abb6 Loquez says : 



Have no excess of humidity, plant ftirther apart, give the trees air, let them grow 

 tall, be inoderate with irrigation — water gives fruit but is liable to injure the tree — 

 finally, bum the infected branches. 



M. Eiviere suggests lime-water washes, fumigating with tobacco, 

 washing and brushing the leaves, branches, and fruit. Dr. Signorel 

 adds hanging wisps of straw soaked in coal-tar under the trees. At 

 Mentone petroleum and vinegar-water are both used as washes. 



Two methods are given in the record of the Entomological Society of 

 France for 1883; the first from Greece, the second from Sicily: 



(1) Prune well and syringe the trees with the following mixture : 

 Eight parts water with one each of petroleum and quick lime finely 



powdered. 



(2) Powder the trees while damp with dew with fresh or uuleached 



wood ashes. 



To sum up, keep the trees healthy, do not plant in low places or 

 where there is much fog, cut off sickly branches, and destroy by hand as 

 many insects as possible. 



" Gum " shows great weakness and probable death of the branch ou 

 which it appears ; it is considered to be a cryptogamic disease. M. 

 Peragallo gives the following insects which seem to be friends of the 

 orange and lemou trees : 



Syrphus hyalinatus {de Fallen). — Prom larvae found at Mentoue ami 

 Eoqueburne, m whose neighborhood were quantities of the larvae of 

 Acrolepia citri, black and dried, were developed in his breeding cases a 

 diptera already known as destructive to the coccide, identified as the 

 Syrphus by alinatus (de Fallen). This insect is considered by M. 

 Peragallo as one of the most useful parasites of the lemon trees, living 

 as it does on different kinds of insects hurtful to the tree and being 

 quite common in some sections. H« has found also in the chrysalides 

 of Microlepidoptera larvae which gave birth to tiny Hymeuoptera as 

 yet unnamed, and in one case records the birth of a Hemerobius 

 chrysops from the chrysalis of a Bupithecia pumilata; these latter 

 cases being more truly in the nature of parasites than the Syrphus 

 hyalinatus. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT, 



Besides personal observation I am indebted to the following works 

 for information ou the subject. In some (;ase8, particularly concerning 

 the insects, I have made free translations : 



