REPORTS OF OBSERVATION- AND EXPERIMENTS. 41 



Early in May I received from Mr. S. W. Gilbert, of the Flint Hill 

 fruit farms, in Oregon County, a few small lepidopterous larvae taken 

 from the young apple trees, with the information that "the worms eat 

 the inner bark next to the hard wood and are usually, if not alwi 

 concealed at least one-eighth of an inch from the dead bark/' Mr. Gil- 

 bert further says: "I find the insects especially abundant on trees that 

 have been 'sun scalded' on the southwest side. They work at the 

 edges of the green bark next to the dead portion of the tree. Among 

 the young Missouri pippin trees last year I found a large number that 

 had on their trunks from one to several spots of dead wood about twice 

 the size of a silver dollar, and in every case we find this spring these 

 worms working around the deadened spot." The larvae accompanying 

 the above note were about one-half inch in length by one-tenth inch in 

 diameter, subcylindrical, of a yellowish-white color, with a few scatt 

 soft white hairs arising from inconspicuous piliferous plates. Head 

 dark brown, rather broad and short, collar covering rather more than 

 half of the top of the first joint. The appearance was almost precisely 

 that of a Tortricid, except that the jaws seemed somewhat broader and 

 stronger. In the course of a few days, however, the peculiar cocoons, 

 or follicles characteristic of the iEgerians were formed between pieces 

 of bark, except in the case of two larva?, in whose place appeared two 

 rather large white cocoons of a parasite, probably an Apanteles. But 

 one of these developed and this, to my very great regret, escaped from 

 the rearing jar and could not be recovered. On June two moths 

 emerged, both males, which upon comparison proved to be the species 

 above named. These were the only examples that I was able to obtain, 

 but several other correspondents reported borers in young apple trees 

 whose habits seemed to agree with those sent by Mr. Gilbert. 



In all cases it was recommended to drench the trunks of the trees 

 with kerosene emulsion two or three times during the months of June 

 and July, or to apply the soft soap and soda mixture that has been so 

 often used to prevent the borer beetles from laying their eggs. As it 

 was not asserted that this JEgerian confined its attacks to that portion 

 of the trunk just above ground, as is the habit of the allied peach 

 borer, I could not advise mounding as a preventive. 



The Peach or Plum Bark-louse. — While at Carthage, in Jasper 

 County, last December, in attendance at the annual meeting of our 

 State Horticultural Society, one of the residents of the city brought me 

 a number of peach twigs from his orchard in the suburbs, thickly cov- 

 ered with the characteristic scales of Lccanium p- ib.. with the 

 information that many of his trees had become unthrifty and unfruitful 

 in consequence. This was my first acquaintance with this scale, as it 

 has not hitherto proved sufficiently injurious to attract much attention 

 from peach-growers: and upon looking up such of its literature a> was 

 at my command I found that its complete life history had not been pub- 

 lished. 



