44 
CURRANT. 
lie drew my attention to the very great number of eggs in the cottony 
matter surrounding the Scale. 
The specimens were submitted by Mr. S. L. Mosley to Mr. J. W. 
Douglas, of 8, Beaufort Gardens, Lewisham, S.E., for authoritative 
identification, who reported on them as follows :—“ The Coccids you 
sent are Pulvinaria ribesice, Signoret (‘Essai sur les Coclienilles,’ 
p. 219), a species found on Red Currant-bushes in France, and which 
I have long expected to hear inhabited Britain, but until now I have 
not seen it.” As this kind has not as yet been brought forward here, 
I append in a note* a translation of Dr. Signoret’s scientific description. 
My own more general description, from specimens examined on June 
2nd, is as follows :— 
The scale itself (see fig. 1 a) dark grey-brown, rather longer than 
broad (the specimens measured from one-eiglith to three-sixteenths of 
an inch in length, and over one-eighth of an inch in width), of a squarish 
oval, with the hinder extremity notched or heart-shaped, and in their 
then dried state the fore part turned up so much as to be reflexed; 
the keel along the back was still partly observable, with slight ridges 
running down to the edge of the scale. 
The white cottony or woolly matter (figured at 1, p. 48) which forms 
the nest of the eggs, and of the young scales in their earliest condition, 
formed, where it was undisturbed, a compact tuft, on the front part of 
which the scale itself was raised, sometimes almost vertically. Whilst 
fresh, the scale and its white wool formed together a somewhat oval 
mass, which presently became drawn out in all directions, so that in 
the distance the infested branches looked as if they were scattered over 
with whitewash (see accompanying figure from a photo kindly taken 
for me by Mr. T. P. Newman, of 54, Hatton Garden). 
* “ In its most advanced stage, this species, which is nearly allied to P. vitis 
and P. oxyacantha, is 4 millemetres long by 3 broad, not including in this the white 
cottony matter, which may vary in extent according to the state of growth of the 
embryos which it contains. The scale is of a reddish brown, with a line more or 
less raised on the back, which gives it almost the appearance of being keeled ; on 
each side of the body it is wrinkled, and faintly pitted; in a dry state the folds are 
hardly observable—it might be said to be smooth. It is nearly allied to vitis, but 
smaller, thicker, rounder, more heart-shaped, and of a deeper brown; ribesice is 
distinguished from it, especially in the embryo state, which is longer, with the 
members thicker, the tarsi and tibiae much shorter, and half less in size in P. 
ribesice than in P. vitis, and the large hair which is observed on the tibia in almost 
all the species is very much longer in this one; the antennae, almost of similar 
form, have fewer long hairs; thus in the embryo of Pulvinaria vitis six are 
observable, whilst in ribesice there are only five, of which that of the third article 
and that of the disc of the last article are much the longest, the great hair at the 
extremity of this article being a good third shorter than these. With regard to the 
cottony matter which is observable, it is very abundant in this species, and entirely 
of the same nature of that of P. vitis'' —‘Essai sur les Cochinelles,’ 15, Pulvinaria 
ribesice nobis, par M. le Docteur Signoret. p. 219 (vol. i. of Collected Essays). 
