Author: Great Britain Ministry of Agr Fisheries

Publisher:

Published: 2015-07-03

Total Pages: 122

ISBN-13: 9781330658222

Excerpt from Collected Leaflets on Insect Pests of Fruit Trees The sections in a leaflet follow on naturally. The first thing which attracts attention to a pest is the damage. Under "Plants Attacked and Nature of Damage" is given a list of the crops likely to be attacked and the characteristic signs of injury. Under the next section, "Description and Life-History" are described, the appearance of the pest in its various forms, and its life-history or habits, showing where it lives at each season of the year and which are its vulnerable stages. With this information it is then possible to follow the suggestions given under "Measures of Control," carrying out each operation with discretion and not by rule of thumb - a most important point, for success is often dependent on adapting a measure to meet special local conditions. Notes on Insects in General. - As it is impossible to deal separately with many insects in the leaflets themselves, a few general notes may be found useful. Description. - Insects belong to a group of creatures characterised (1) by the possession of a jointed body which is supported not by bones inside but by a hard horny skin, and (2) by the possession on one or more segments of the body of jointed "appendages" which may be modified to act as legs, jaws, antennae (feelers), &c. Strictly speaking, the term Insects should be confined to the creatures in the group with only three pairs of legs (in addition to other characteristics), such, for instance, as moths, beetles or bugs, but for practical purposes the name usually includes the groups containing mites (red spiders) and spiders with four pairs of legs, and the millipedes and centipedes with many pairs of legs. From the practical point of view no detailed knowledge of the various organs of the body is necessary but it is helpful to know a little of the features which characterise an insect as a living creature. The body consists of three parts - the head, the thorax and the abdomen. (a) The head bears the antennae (or "feelers"). which are not only organs of touch but are probably connected with other senses, possibly in some forms with smell. (Little, however, is known about the senses of insects except that by some means they smell and probably hear also.) There are also on the head the eyes which when well developed enable them to see the shape of things, or in other cases may be only sufficient to detect light or darkness. The mouth, on the underside of the head, is surrounded by "appendages" which vary in the different groups, in some taking the form of biting jaws and fingerlike organs to push food between them, while in others the same organs may be modified so as to form a "trunk" enabling the insect to bore holes and suck up juices. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.