20 



Remedies. 



If found necessary, hbnd-picking would be the best method for deal- 

 ing with these insects. 



II. Haustellate or Sacking Insects. 



We now come to the second, and in the cas ^ of Citrus trees, the 

 most important class of insect pests. In this class are those insects 

 that exhaust the vitality of plants and trees by absorbing their juices 

 with a beak-like proboscis. 



( 1) Scale Insects and Mealy Bugs. 



Scale insects and mealy bugs belong to the family Coccidae, which is 

 included in the order Jiemiptera, or true bugs, and they may here be 

 taken to represent the haustellate or sucking insects. 



Most of the injury done to plants in tropical and sub-tropical coun- 

 tries is due to scale insects, some 1,200 species of whieh are known to 

 occur the world over, and about one- tenth of these are to be found in 

 the West Indies. These pests have been the bane of citrus growers in 

 the United States, where all the science of economic entomology has 

 been brought to bear on them, resulting in the greatest success in keep- 

 ing them under contiol. 



Upwards of sixty species of scde insects are recorded from Jamaica, 

 b. few of which infest the orange and other Citrus trees. Among 

 those occurring on Citrus trees may be mentioned the orange 

 mussel scale, JKytilaspis citricola; the red spotted Aspidiotus, Aspidiotus 

 ■ficus ; and the orange snow scale, Chionaspis citri. This latter scale 

 has lately been sent to the Museum, and reported to be infecting hun- 

 dreds of orange irees in a grove in Clarendon. The pest was identified 

 at the Museum as Chionaspis citri, but as this species has hitherto not 

 been recorded as occurring in Jamaica, specimens were sent to Dr. 

 Morris of the Imperial Department of Agriculture for further determi- 

 nation, and Mr. Lefroy. the Entomologist for the Department, con- 

 firmed the determination as Chionaspis citri. This species occurs in 

 great numbers on the leaves and twigs. The females are brown and 

 much larger than the males, which latter are pure white. This scale is 

 said to occur in the orange groves of the Eastern United States, and to 

 be specially troublesome in Louisiana. It is also reported to be 

 very ] revalent from New Orleans to the Gulf, and that its presence 

 on the trees causes a bursting of the bark and very ugly wounds. 

 As a result of this, it is said that the trunks of many of the older trees 

 become rotten, and all this is said to be due to the attacks of this scale 

 insect, which is a most pernicious scale of orange and lime trees. Every 

 effort therefore ought to be taken to prevent it spreading. 



In Jamaica scale insects in general, appear to be most dangerous to 

 Citrus trees in the lower and drier parts, and while they may occur on 

 trees at higher elevations, they do not seem to affect them as injuri- 

 ously. 



Hitherto the growth of Citrus fruits under anything like proper cul- 

 tivation, has not reached much more than an experimental stage in this 

 country, and therefore to what extent the trees will suffer from insect 

 -and other pests when a more artificial state of cultivation is entered 

 upon, and systematic groves established, and foreign and select varieties 

 more cultivated, can only be a matter for the future to settle ; but in the 



