ENEMIES, AND HOW TO FIGHT THEM. 



89 



It makes no scale shelter, is even moving about, and places 

 its eggs beneath a cotton-like substance. In twelve days they 

 hatch, and the young begin their career of destruction, sucking 

 the juices from the tender leaves and twigs, the odd mealy sub- 

 stance from which they take their name, forming meanwhile all 

 over them. They increase very rapidly, breeding all the year, 

 and seem to defy any wash that does not contain kerosene ; this, 

 however, is fatal to them. 



The leaf-footed plant bug is another destructive foe to the 

 orange, and also to the plum, rice, and many other vegetable 

 productions. 



The young are a bright yellowish red, without the leaf-like 

 extension to their legs that afterwards appears. The adult is a 

 curious shaped reddish brown bug, having a long sharp beak, 

 and a transverse yellowish white band across its wings ; w^hen 

 the latter are raised, its back is seen to be flat and hollow, red in 

 color, with black spots ; its hind-legs are oddly shaped like nar- 

 row leaves. It sucks the sap from tender shoots and terminal 

 branches, thus killing them outright. 



Mr. Ashmead gives the only remedy known, of catchiag 

 them in a butterfly net and scalding them. 



Grasshoppers and katydids are also destructive foes to orange 

 trees, devouring leaf after leaf in an incredibly snort time; their 

 quick, active movements make them hard to deal with, and the 

 best-known weapons with which to fight them are the birds and 

 a flock of chickens, and guinea fowls in the grove. 



There is a large, beautiful butterfly that may be seen every- 

 where in Florida, from early spring to winter ; it is black, with 

 two yellow bands across if^ wings, formed by a series of yellow 

 spots. 



Under the rule of "Handsome is as handsome does," the 

 )range grower has reason to consider this beautiful insect as 

 lideous, since it and the orange dog, or puppy, are identical. 



"Whenever you see a little round egg sticking to an orange 

 leaf, crush it at once; the' orange butterfly has laid it there, and 

 directly it will become a peculiarly marked worm, with a large 



