Page:The Olive Its Culture in Theory and Practice.djvu/136

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THE OLIVE

The perfect insect has a slender elongated body, head cylindrical, longer than wide, protruding eyes, antennae nine jointed, upper thorax almost hexagonal, wider than it is long, abdomen wider in the middle than at the base, and composed of segments posteriorly rounded, and in the female ending in the ovary, which is nearly horn shaped. Upper wings nearly reaching to abdominal extremities, fringed with long hair, reaching about two-fifths the way round the body, under wings plain and shorter, the feet robust, the femora swollen, the tibia small at the base and enlarged at the extremities, the tarsi short and thick, double jointed and finished with two delicate claws. General color a splendid black, the antennae yellow, the upper wings a dirty white. The length of body nine hundredths of an inch.

The Trips exist in the clefts of the branches and among the buds; and if there are many of them, they will extend themselves to the under-part of the leaves. They are agile and fly well. The female deposits her eggs wherever she happens to be, and the larvæ remain in the same place. About a month is necessary for the different changes to take place. In the spring and autumn they produce several broods. At the beginning of winter, those that survive, conceal themselves under the bark, or in its crevices and rest quietly till the following spring. Then the Trips are in great numbers and invade many branches, the trees infested should be shaken, first spreading a cloth beneath, to gather up the larvae, chrysalides, and winged specimens that may fall. If the branches have been long infected it will be better to take them off outright and burn them. Spraying with kerosene in the autumn before these lice have thoroughly secreted themselves under the bark, will probably answer every purpose,

The Apple, Greedy, and Red Bay Scale insects have all been noticed on the olive in California, but so far as known do not seem to have inflicted much injury on the trees, and are easily exterminated by the application of the usual remedies.