HOP APHIS. 
7 
deposit brings forth Lice, which after a time turn to Fly, and thus 
visit the Hop plants. You can generally tell in the spring, several 
days before an attack on the Hops, whether you are likely to have it.” 
—T. Hammond, Fordcombe, Tunbridge Wells. 
“ The severe attacks are generally foretold hy the time of picking in 
September. When at that time the Lice abound to an enormous 
extent, the pokes are covered—the pickers’ hands are moist with 
Lice—then the attack is certain in May or June following. Previous 
to the attack Lice are found on Blackthorn ; these Lice turn to Fly 
(I have seen them). As soon as the Blackthorns are clean Fly cease.” 
—F. Arnold, Saint’s Hill House, Penshurst. 
“It appears that the blight first shows itself on the Blackthorn, then 
on the Sloes, so by degrees on all forest trees more or less, especially 
in the Willows, &c., and in such numbers that it is impossible to deal 
with the insect as a whole.”—F. L. Hausburg, Edenthal, Penshurst, 
Kent. 
The foregoing observations appear to me to point very strongly to 
the probability of attack coming on the wing, and from Plum and 
Sloe ; and most careful search made in earth taken from the roots of 
infested Hop plants has not shown that either in winter or spring eggs 
or Aphides are lying there. 
Eggs or Aphides have not yet been found, either in late autumn or 
winter, on dead bines, leaves, earth, or root-stocks, or on growing 
shoots in early spring. 
Mr. G. B. Buckton mentions in March, 1883, he received a block 
of earth containing the root-stock of a Hop plant which had been 
infested with Fly during the previous year. This he examined care¬ 
fully, “ taking a spoonful at a time, and viewing it under lenses of 
different magnifying powers,” and, he says, “ I could not find a trace 
of either Aphis or eggs.”* 
Earth. 
My own observations began by careful examination of earth 
received on November 29th, 1882, sent me from Hop hills known to 
have been infested by Aphides in the previous season. I kept this 
(carefully secured) out of doors during the winter, and, on the 19th of 
March, examined some of the earth : as nothing appeared in the shape 
of Aphides either then or afterwards, on the 8th of May I turned the 
contents of the box out and examined the earth with great care, but I 
did not find either eggs, or Lice, or Fly. My observations were taken 
both by examining the earth under a lens, and also by putting portions 
in water so as to detach any light bodies and examine them on the 
surface. In the course of all this I detected a very few—perhaps four 
* ‘ Brit. Aphides,’ by G. B. Buckton, F.R.S., vol. iv., p. 187. 
