74 



NOXIOUS INSECTS IN ENGLAND AND CANADA. 



By THE Rev. C. J. S. Bethuxe, Port Hope, Ont. 



In our last year's Report on Insects, I gave some extracts from Miss E. A. Ormerod's 

 "Notes of Observations of Injurious Insects "in England during the preceding three 

 vears, noticing especially those that are familiar to us on this side of the Atlantic. Since 

 the publication of our Report, Miss Ormerod (whose personal acquaintance I had the pleasure^ 

 of making last summer) has issued her series of "Notes" for 1880, and has published an 

 admirable " Manual of Injurious Insects and Methods of Prevention " — an illustrated 

 volume of nearly 400 pages — that must prove of immense practical value to the farmers 

 and gardeners of Great Britain. I have also recently received from her a copy of a 

 Lecture on Injurious Insects, that she delivered in October last before the professors and 

 students of the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester. From all these materials sup- 

 plied by our indefatigable and talented authoress, I propose to give this year an account 

 of some of the most important of the insect enemies that trouble the fruit-growers alike 

 in England and in this country, from which I hope that some useful lessons may be- 

 derived for our information and guidance here. Several of the woodcuts with which 

 this paper is illustrated are reproductions of Miss Ormerod's own drawings in her 

 " Manual of Injurious Insects." 



1. — The Woolly Aphis of the Apple. 



This insect is familiarly known in England by the name of the " American Blight, " 

 because it is believed to have been introduced from this continent in the year 1787. 

 Much doubt has been expressed regarding the correctness of this opinion, and for a long 

 time most of our entomologists considered that the European insect was quite a distinct 

 species from the American, and accordingly described the latter under a separate name. 

 The European insect was called Eriosoma lanigera, Hausm., and the American, Eriosoma 

 pyri, Fitch ; now it is agreed on almost all sides that the two insects are identical, though 

 their habits differ very much, and that they should both be known as the Woolly Aphis 

 of the Apple — Scliizoneura lanigera, Hausm. 



In England this creature attacks the branches and twigs of the apple tree, and may 

 be at once " detected by thei woolly or cottony growth on the insects, giving the appearance 



of a white film growing at the bottom of the- 

 Fig. 42. crevices where a few of th^-m are lurking.. 



Where there are many, the spot appears as if a 

 knot of cotton-wool was sticking to the bough, 

 or even hanging down in pieces several inches 

 in length, ready to be wafted by the first gust 

 of wind, with all the insects in it, to a neigh- 

 bouring bough." 



"The 'Blight' is chiefly to be found in ne- 

 glected apple orchards. Its headquarters are in^ 

 crevices in the bark, or in hollows where young 

 bark is pressing forward over the surface where 

 a bough has been cut off, or broken by accident 

 so as to leave a shelter of the old dead bark 

 outside; it may, however, be found on almost 

 every part of the tree into which the Aphis can 

 Winged Woolly Aphis, magnified ; larvae much ^^^^^ ^'^^^ its sucker ; and the harm caused by 

 magnified. Apple twig, with the same larvse -fl , , ^ - , ^ c xi ^-^ 

 nat. size at the lower part of the infested spot, the attack is not only trom the quantity ot sap 

 ^ drawn away from the bark or young shoots, 



but also from the diseased growth which is thus set up. The bark is at first not much 

 affected by the punctures, but the woody layers beneath become soft, pulpy and swollen. 

 The cells and fibres divide and subdivide, and the bark splits open over the swelling, 

 showing the tissue beneath, which is thus exposed for a fresh attack. 



