ACTING STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
35 
ural History of which more erroneous ideas prevail —and against which a greater num¬ 
ber of ridiculous and useless panaceas have been recommended — than the Oyster-shell 
Bark-louse. The reasons are many. In the first place, except for a very brief period of 
the year, all we can see of it is a small, motionless and apparently lifeless scale, closely 
appressed to the bark, of precisely the same color as the bark itself, and so totally 
unlike the popular idea of a “ bug,” or even the scientific idea of an animal, that it is 
sure not to be noticed by the unpractised eye, except when it has increased so prodig¬ 
iously as to overspread almosi completely a whole limb. So closely indeed at this 
period does it resemble a mere vegetable growth, that when, as often happens, it is 
located round the base of a young apple-twig or apple-spur, scarcely any but the acute 
eye of a field-entomologist can distinguish it from the natural wrinkles and creases of 
the bark. Again : these scales, after the eggs underneath them have hatched out, and 
the young larvae have dispersed themselves in various directions, still adhere to the 
bark for years, and even 12 or 18 months after the eggs have hatched, present exactly 
the same external appearance as they did in the first instance. Hence nothing is moie 
natural than for an inexperienced person to suppose, that these old dead last year’s 
scales, with no eggs whatever under them, are scales which were alive but yesterday, 
and which have been killed, eggs and all, by some ridiculous and useless tv ash, which 
he has been recommended, on what liesupposes to be the highest authority, to apply to 
them. Moreover, as I shall afterwards explain, there is a minute and almost microscopic 
Mite ( Acarus ), that preys most extensively upon the eggs under the scales during the 
autumnal and early spring months, not only in the West, but also in the East; and this 
opens another door for error and delusion. Some quack nostrum is applied a few 
dozen scales are lifted, and the eggs under almost all of them are found to be shriveled 
up to nothing — and then hey presto! the conclusion is jumped to, that it was the quack 
nostrum, not the Cannibal Mite that had killed the eggs, and the wonderful discovery is 
paraded immediately in the nearest Agricultural Journal. Lastly, at one particular 
time of the year, as I shall afterwards show, a very slight degree of friction with a stiff 
brush will destroy these Bark-lice — horse, foot and dragoons. Now see what follows 
from this fact. Some worthless Patent Wash is applied to the infested limbs with such 
a brush at this particular period — it is in reality the brush, and not the wash, that 
destroys the Bark-lice — and yet the cozened fruit-grower firmly believes, that it is the 
Grand Infallible Neyer-failing Anti-Bark-louse Specific that has done the 
business for them, and the papers ring with certificates of the great reliability of the 
newly-discovered nostrum, sold by all Druggists and Patent Medicine Venders at the 
low price of $5 per pint. 
It would be easy to fill a volume with the history of the different remedies that have 
been published against this miserable Bark-louse. Lime-washes, soda-washes, tobacco- 
water, dry ashes, tar, fish-brine, potash-washes, sulphur-washes, common brine, solu¬ 
tions of soap, solutions of quassia, solutions of aloes, the ammoniacal fumes of 
sheep-manure, and combinations of two three and four of the above ingredients in 
every conceivable proportion that the wit of man could devise hav e all been stiongly 
recommended in print on what seemed to be the very best authority. Yet, with the 
exception of two or three of these articles — and these only if they be applied at a pai - 
ticular period of the year—I believe them all to be equally useless and inefficacious. 
Indeed, after filling one volume with certificates from the most respectable soui ces 
highly recommending, one after another, every one of the above panaceas, it would be 
easy to fill another volume with the doleful lamentations of men, who have tried them 
