CHAPTER V. 
REMEDIES AGAINST COCCIDIDA. 
Many people are under the impression that scale-insects out-of- 
doors are not of much consequence. They are aware that in 
greenhouses and hothouses these insects are a trouble to 
gardeners, and that they probably injure flowering or fruit- 
bearing plants in such situations. But they imagine that in the 
open air, and on large well-grown trees, Coccids do no very great 
harm ; or, if the trees are for a time injured, that recovery and 
health will come before long, and the pest will disappear. This 
is not the place in which to controvert this or any other opinion. 
A work professedly dealmg with facts should be as free as 
possible from controversial discussion. Whatever, therefore, may 
be the grounds of the opinion just stated, or the reasons for 
rejecting it, it will be sufficient here to say that there seems to 
be nothing to lead to the belief that New Zealand is likely to be 
different from other countries im this respect. ‘To institute 
a comparison, it would be manifestly absurd to include such 
countries as England, or Germany, or, on the other hand, India, 
or Central America, or North Australia—Firstly, because in the 
greater part, or at least in the torthern parts, of Europe the 
winters are much more severe than in New Zealand, and almost . 
certainly the great cold is injurious to such insects as Coccids. 
Secondly, because in tropical countries it seems that the too 
great heat is equally obnoxious to them; and, with the excep- 
tion of a few species, tropical Coccids are comparatively harm- 
less. But it is to the warmer temperate or the subtropical 
regions that we must look for comparison—regions where 
there is neither too scorching a summer nor too ice-bound a 
winter. And, for this purpose, we have only to take such lands 
as California, Florida, the South of France or Northern Italy, 
the Cape of Good Hope, the southern regions of Australia, &e. 
The experience of these is, that some species of Coccids do in- 
