Mr. White to Mr.
Day.
Embassy
of the United States,
Berlin, July 8,
1898.
No. 487.]Sir: Referring to my dispatch No. 419, of May 9
last, I have the honor to inclose herewith a copy and translation of an
inclosure in a note which has just been received from the German foreign
office, purporting to be the answer of the Imperial health office to the
request made by the embassy for a statement as to the “exact specific
determination” of the living insect and egg which were found in a
shipment of American fruit waste at Kaldenkirchen. As it is evident from
this that my request was misunderstood, I have to-day acknowledged the
receipt of the note mentioned, and renewed my request to be informed as
to the species of the scale which was found.
I am, etc.,
[Inclosure in No.
487.—Translation.]
The proof of the presence of living scale insects and eggs in
imported American apple parings, mentioned in my report of April 11,
1898, was obtained as follows:
The objects in question were placed upon a slide in a drop of water,
covered with a cover glass, and then pressure was exerted while the
object was under the microscope until the objects were burst.
Thereupon there was a copious flow of the body components and egg
plasm, respectively, into the surrounding water. This phenomenon
appears, according to the experience gained by the European workers
in studying the biology of the Phylloxera, in the allied species of
insects only when they are alive or when they have been dead a short
time. It does not occur when the objects in question have been dead
a long time.
As the drying of the apple parings must take place in America at
least a week and a half before the goods arrive here, the phenomenon
mentioned proves that the scale insects in question and the eggs are
not killed by this drying.
