1877. ] 
VINES AND VINE-CULTURE.—CHAPTER XIII. 
2G9 
plenty of blossom has appeared, the whole crop has been devoured by these 
caterpillars. 
The Vine Louse {Phylloxera vastatrix). —This is the most dreaded and dread¬ 
ful of all the insects which attack the vine, and has unfortunately found its way 
into our vineries, in many of which it may possibly exist, unrecognised and unknown, 
if circumstances have not been favourable or the lapse of time sufficient for its 
development. As we cannot say much of this pest from our own personal know¬ 
ledge of it, we cannot do better than quote Mr. Andrew Murray’s account of it, as 
given in the new edition of Thompson’s Gardener'^s Assistant. This, with Mr. 
Worthington Smith’s sketches (figs. 4 and 5—the former borrowed from the 
Gardeners* Chronicle)., will be sufficient to put cultivators on their guard against 
its intrusion, and enable them to recognise it if, unfortunately, it should make 
its appearance:— 
“ The Phylloxeridce are intermediate between the Coccidm and Aphides ; they have 
the clubbed digitules on the tarsi which are present in the Coccidoe, and wanting in the 
Aphides, and in their younger stages are more allied to the Coccidce, while in their 
winged and more perfect state they are more nearly allied to the Aphides. 
“Within the last ten years or so a sore malady has fallen upon the vines both in 
France and America, and also on the vines in the hot-houses in this country; and 
although it is not yet admitted by all naturalists to be due to the attacks of the Phylloxera 
vastatrix, few entertain any doubt on the subject. The French Government certainly 
has entertained none, for it has offered a prize of 20,000 francs for any remedy or pre¬ 
ventive against its attacks. This has given rise to a flood of specifics of all kinds. The 
number of so-called remedies is said to have exceeded 2,000 in number, the examination 
of which alone has entailed on the French officials an unheard-of amount of trouble, 
especially as every remedy required to be tested on a fair and sufficient scale, and more 
than once. All this trouble and expense, however, has as yet been fruitless; no remedy 
has been found. 
“ In the earlier part of its cycle (for it has a cycle, as we shall presently explain) it 
appears under two distinct forms, both wingless, which differ, not materially, but suffi¬ 
ciently from each other, the one having tubercles on the back, and the other being almost 
without them. The former is found exclusively upon the roots, the latter exclusively 
upon the leaves; but they have been traced going from one to the other. They are so 
small that they can hardly be detected by the naked eye, but under a lens are seen to be 
of a fleshy texture, and light yellowish-brown in colour. Under this form both larvse 
and females are found. 
“ If we examine the root and try to trace the insect, its course of life seems to be 
this :—It fixes itself, like the Coccidce, to the root by inserting its sucker or beak into 
the bark of the root, and when once fixed it remains fixed for the rest of its life. While 
BO fixed she lays around her in little groups a quantity of elliptical eggs, which are at first 
a fine sulphur-yellow colour, but afterwards take by degrees a smoky-gray or blackish 
hue, a point in which it corresponds rather with the Aphides than the Coccidce. After 
about eight days a larva comes out of the egg, which resembles, except in size, the mother 
that laid it, but it is of a greenish-yellow colour. The larva thus hatched is at first rest¬ 
less and agile, but at the end of three or four days it has chosen its place, and fixes itself 
by its sucker, and remains on the spot. It undergoes three moults, separated from each 
other by from three to five days. After about twenty days the female laiwa becomes adult 
and lays about thirty eggs, and the number of generations in a year is estimated at eight, 
which would give a posterity of from 25,000,000 to 30,000,000 during a season for each 
individual. That is the course of life of the great majority of individuals of Phylloxera, 
but a few undergo five moults instead of three, which brings them to the superior state 
of insects endowed with flight. In this stage they have four wings, of which the anterior 
pair are transparent, but darkened as if with smoke at the end. The winged female lays 
its eggs in the down of the young leaves and buds, and the eggs that it lays are larger 
and in fewer number than those of the apterous females on the roots, and they are of 
two sizes, of which the largest are female eggs and the smaller males. But the insects 
which issue from them are remarkable in more respects than one. From the female eggs 
