August 19, 1880. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
167 
extermination cannot be commenced too promptly nor carried out 
too thoroughly. 
In the instance under notice the Vines are fortunately in inside 
borders, and the attack also commenced in the centre of the house, 
the two end Vines not being nearly so much affected as the others. 
There is good hope, therefore, that the discovery was made just in 
time to prevent the Vines in half a dozen other large houses in the 
same garden being affected and speedily ruined. 
The description and habits of the Phylloxera vastatrix by M. 
Planchon are as follows:—“ Its best known form is that in which no 
trace of wings can be discovered. When the insect is about to lay 
its eggs (that is, in the adult female state), it forms a small ovoid 
mass, having its inferior surface flattened, its dorsal surface convex, 
being surrounded by a kind of fillet, which is very narrow when it 
touches the thoracic part of its body, which, formed by five rather 
indistinct rings, is hardly separated from its abdominal part of seven 
rings. 
“ Six rows of small blunt tubercles form a slight protuberance on 
the thoracic segments, and are found very faintly marked on the 
abdominal segments. The head is always concealed by the an¬ 
terior protuberance of the buckler; the antennae are almost always 
inactive. The abdomen, often short and contracted, becomes elon¬ 
gated towards laying time, and there can be easily seen one, two, 
or sometimes three eggs, in a more or less mature state. 
“ The egg sometimes retains its yellow colour for one, two, or 
three days after it has been laid; more often, however, it changes 
to a dull grey hue. From five to eight days generally elapse before 
it is hatched. The duration of this period depends a good deal on 
the temperature. 'Jhe quantity of eggs, and the rapidity with 
which they are produced, are probably determined by a variety of 
circumstances—the health of the insect, the quantity of nourish¬ 
ment it is able to obtain, the weather, and perhaps other causes. A 
female which had produced six eggs at 8 o’clock a.m. on the 
20th of August had fifteen on the 21st at 4 p.m.— that is, she laid 
nine in thirty-two hours. Other females lay one, two, or three eggs 
in twenty-four hours. The maximum quantity is thirty in five 
days. The eggs are generally piled up near the mother without any 
apparent order, but she sometimes changes her position so as to 
scatter them all around her. They have a smooth surface, and ad¬ 
here lightly to each other by meaus of a slimy matter which attaches 
to them. 
“ Hatching takes place through an irregular and often lateral rent 
in the egg. the empty and crumpled membrane being found among 
eggs in different stages of hatching.” 
The following interesting remarks on the genus Phylloxera by a 
skilled entomologist, “ J. P. S. C.,” have also been published in 
the Journal:—• 
“ The genus Phylloxera, represented by such species as P. coc- 
cinea, vastatrix, and quercus, presents such strange anomalies that 
our entomological leaders are puzzled as to its place in this order. 
Like the scale insects, the females are oviparous, but the parents do 
not die off to furnish a protective coating for the young. In several 
instances broods in various stages of growth reside within galls 
formed on the roots or branches of the plants they attack, the 
Phylloxera resembling the aphides, in their succession of summer 
broods consisting only of females. Excellent, therefore, as are some 
of the remedies proposed, they have this awkward circumstance 
against them, that owing to the secluded habits of the majority of 
the Phylloxerse, the killing agent cannot be placed near enough to 
them. As to their rapid multiplication, on the Oak leaves during 
July or August there maybe observed, where the insects occur, a 
dozen or more of females upon a single leaf, each surrounded by her 
batch of more than a hundred eggs, regularly arranged in circles. 
Some very startling statements have been published about these 
Phylloxeras by the French naturalists, and not all of these have 
been verified as yet by sufficient observations. But it seems pretty 
well ascertained that the Vine-eaters, under certain conditions of 
their life, migrate to the Oak, and the reverse operation also occurs. 
Then the root-infesting Phylloxeras, which are for many generations 
entirely subterranean in habit, are continued through a limited 
number of years by wingless females, until they die out, new 
colonies of the Phylloxeras being propagated by the winged speci¬ 
mens bred from the leaves. And if we could credit M. Balbiani, that 
some females only deposit a single egg at the period when the winged 
development occurs (though another naturalist deems this a pupa), 
we should deem the Phylloxerse pre-eminent amongst their brethren 
on account of their peculiarities.” 
If the species that attacks the Vine is proved as stated also to 
migrate to the Oak, the question, serious enough before, becomes 
more serious still, as the difficulty of stamping out the pest must be 
much greater than if its attacks were limited to the ^ ine. 
After the pest has been extirpated from the vinery referred to 
the means that have been adopted.will be published in the Journal, 
with some experiments with the insect that will prove interesting 
and possibly instructive. In the meantime all persons when 
planting Vines should closely examine the roots, especially the 
