80 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST, 
[ June, 
habit of bending the body into a circle, fastening the 
points of the head into those of the tail, and then 
suddenly letting them go with a jerk, causing the 
insect to spring to the distance of several inches, a 
muscular feat which is almost as if a man were able 
to take a leap of a hundred yards. When full grown, 
they fall to the ground and bury themselves in the 
earth. Running about, and even within some of the 
infested pods, we found a minute black shining 
hymenopterous parasite, the Leptacis scutellaris, 
represented iu our lower figure, an insect closely 
allied to the Ichneumon, and we have no doubt that 
our little species is parasitic on the larva of the 
Pea Midge.” 
The Pea Moth (Fig B.), Endopisa pisana 
or Tortrix nigricans , is an enemy more easily 
to be detected than the preceding. The cater¬ 
pillars or “ maggots ” are found in the operation 
of shelling the peas, within the pod, and the 
interstices between the peas are often filled up 
with the moist excrement of the insect. The 
infested peas should on no account be allowed 
to fall into the colander, and this may 
be avoided, as the maggots are generally 
visible :— 
“ The caterpillar is found within what seems to 
be a sound pod, the egg from which it was produced 
being deposited within the floret, whilst in a very 
young and tender state.It is about half an 
inch long, of a pale greenish buff or dirty whitish 
colour, with a chestnut-coloured head, and dark 
horny jaws; the segment of the body succeeding 
the head is marked with two dark-chestnut or fulvous 
transverse marks, and the following segments bear 
minute black tubercles, from which spring very fine 
short hairs.On descending to the ground 
[which it does when full-fed, ready to undergo its 
transformations], the larva forms for itself a small 
oval cocoon of fine particles of earth, fastened 
together with a small supply of silk, within which 
it is transformed to a chrysalis, represented magni¬ 
fied in our figure; the hinder part of the body is 
armed with transverse rows of minute spines, which 
enable the pupa to push its way through its cocoon, 
when ready to assume the perfect state. The moth, 
when carefully examined, is a pretty little creature, 
measuring a little more than half an inch in the 
expanse of the fore-wings, which are of a rich 
brownish-black colour or dusky drab, with an olive 
tinge, merging into paler brown towards the ex¬ 
tremity of the wings, the disc varied with small 
ochre-grey scales, the fore-margin of the wing with 
two dusky spots between the base and the middle ; 
beyond the middle are eight small white or cream- 
coloured oblique spots, the first and third produced 
into shining bluish lines, extending nearly to the tip 
of the wing, and below these are a row of black 
marks on a patch of metallic scales ; the hind wings 
are brown, with the base paler.” 
In the month of June in the following year, 
the moths are developed during the blooming 
period of the pea, and their eggs being deposited 
within the young flower, the caterpillar or 
maggot soon appears, to carry on its work of 
destruction. 
The Pea Thrips (Fig. C), Thrips pisivora, is 
another very troublesome pest, which attacks the 
peas by getting into the flower-buds, and suck¬ 
ing the orange-coloured pollen and the embryo 
pea in its soft and tender condition, the result in 
Professor Westwood’s garden being that, not¬ 
withstanding a strong growth, many of the 
blooms were completely crippled ; and where 
the pods afterwards pushed forwards at all, they 
were shrivelled and distorted :— 
“ The large upper right-hand figure shows the 
end of a shoot in which the leaves and flower-buds 
were all shrivelled up into a shapeless mass, out of 
which a weak terminal sprig had been developed. 
A small flower, with its curved pistil, will be seen 
pushing through the middle of the mass on the right 
side of the figure. In the top figure on the left 
hand will be seen two blooms, completely crippled, 
and incapable of development by the punctures of 
the thrips. In the next lower figure the flower has 
pushed itself somewhat more open, but with the 
petals all shrivelled. In the next figure the pod has 
been formed, but is weak and distorted; whilst in 
the right-hand middle figure the pod has grown to 
a considerable size, but is contorted ; and in the 
bottom left-hand figure the pod has been only 
partially developed, the apical half shrivelled up, 
and the outer surface of the pod wrinkled by the 
punctures of the insects. This species of thrips is 
scarcely one-twelfth of an inch in length, of an 
orange colour, and closely resembles the pollen of 
the pea, in the midst of which it must be looked for. 
The antennae are 7-jointed, the fourth joint appear¬ 
ing as though formed of a series of rings, and the 
fifth, sixth, and seventh joints are gradually smaller 
and slenderer; the extremity of the body is dark 
chestnut-coloured, terminated by a cylindrical horny 
borer. The vast number of specimens which we 
met with agreed with our figure in their structural 
details, and appear to be fully-developed females, 
although destitute of wings. We met with no males, 
unless, indeed, a very few other black fully-winged 
specimens may be of that sex.” 
Mr. Marshall, of Ely, states that this Thrips 
has ravaged bis pea crops for the last ten 
years, and that they had suffered so much, that 
he had determined to give up growing them 
altogether. The illustrations show the different 
O 
stages of the disease produced by the action of 
these destructive little creatures.—M. 
ASPARAGUS CULTURE 
IMPROVED. 
DNDER the title of Culture Perfectionnee 
des Asperges , a letter addressed to M. 
' Carriere, by M. 0. Laine, of the 
Central Horticultural Society of France, has 
been published in the Revue Horticole (1881, 
166). M. Laine desires to make known a 
method of growing Asparagus to the largest 
possible bulk, thanks to the use of what he 
calls a rational manure, the composition of 
which it is his object to explain. He first lays 
down the axiom derived from experience, 
that Asparagus progresses and produces best in 
a sandy soil, rich in potash. The manure 
