356 THE ' BROWN SCALE," 
naked eye, but when examined with a powerful magnifier, it is found 
to be studded with very minute warts, which at first sight give it a 
dotted appearance. It is entirely destitute of hairs, except the margin 
of the rim, which is ciliated. 
The number of eggs contained in one of these scales is prodigious, 
amounting, in one which I counted, to no less than 691. The eggs 
are oblong, of a pale flesh-colour, and perfectly smooth. In some of 
the scales which I have examined, the eggs had just been hatched, 
and, when laid on the field of the microscope, exactly resembled those 
masses of life so often seen in old dry cheeses.* P 
'The insect, I find, belongs to the genus Coccus, and is, therefore, a 
congener of that which produces the cochineal of commerce. So far 
as the only books T within my reach enable me to judge, it seems to be 
the Coccus adonidum of Linnzeus, which he mentions as being common 
on evergreen trees in Asia, such as the Camellia, &c. He gives no de- 
scription of the male, but his character of the female agrees pretty 
well with the Coffee one, except in being less conical in the scale state. 
If not the same, it is a very nearly allied species. 
It is not till after the pest has existed on an estate for two or three 
years that it shows itself to any alarming extent. During the first year 
only a few of the ripe scales are seen scattered over the bushes, gene- 
rally on the younger shoots, sometimes on the margins of the under-side 
. of the leaves, but, should the trees be in bearing, most commonly on 
. the footstalks of the berries. The crop this season does not suffer 
. much, and the appearance of the tree is scarcely altered. The following 
year, however, brings a change for the worse. The scales are found 
_to have become more numerous, and if the young shoots and the under 
sides of the leaves are examined, they will be found to be covered with 
 numberless white specks, which prove to be the young scales in a more 
or less forward state. The clusters of berries have assumed a black 
smutty appearance, have a more numerous crop of scales than during 
the previous year, and, if the clusters are watched, it will be found 
.* One or more small yellow maggots are sometimes found mixed with the eggs, 
which are, no doubt, the larvze of some other insect, the eggs of which had been de- 
posited in the scale when it was soft. 
+ These are the 13th edition of the * Systema Naturee’ of Linnseus, in the Garden 
brary, and Deshayes' and Milne Edwards's edition of Lamarck's * Animaux sans 
Vertébres,’ in my own; but the former is now upwards of half a century old, and 
> latter contains descriptions of only a very few species of Coccus, It is much 
e wished that the Garden Library contained a good modern work on Entomology. 
