OR COCCUS, OF THE COFFEE-PLANT. 359 
villagers, he said, were well acquainted with it, and told him that 
it generally made its appearance every three or four years. I must, 
however, observe, that I have questioned my head-gardener, and the 
draughtsman, on the subject ; and although both of them have been con- 
nected with the Peradenia Garden for the last twenty years, and, conse- 
quently, likely either to have seen or heard of such an insect, yet neither 
ofthem can remember anything of the ** Coffee bug " till within the 
last few years, though they have long been well acquainted with some- 
what similar but very different species, inhabiting other kinds of trees. 
This is a fact well worthy of being kept in view, as the draughtsman 
is a person who has a keen eye for distinctions among natural objects, 
and therefore less likely to be mistaken than common observers, parti- 
cularly native ones, who most likely have confounded the ** Coffee 
bug " with other kinds well known to be indigenous. 
In the course of my present investigations, I have met with a num- 
ber of nearly allied species of Scale Coccus infesting different kinds 
of trees and plants, some of which have spread this season to a very 
great extent. Nearly all the Oleanders in the Peradenia Garden are 
at present overrun with a kind of “scale,” which is much larger and 
flatter than the Coffee one, and which, when near its maturity, becomes 
enveloped in a tuft of white cottony matter. Its effect on the tree is 
quite the same as that of the Coffee one, the upper surface of the 
leaves and the young shoots becoming even more densely covered 
with the black matter which gives such a dismal look to the plants. 
The same species also infests the Thevetia neriifolia and the Buddhist 
tree (Plumeria acuminata), all of which possess a milky juice ; and as 
yet I have seen it on no other tree. Another species, about the same 
size as the last, but a little more convex, destitute of cottony substance, 
but exuding a gummy kind of matter round the part it adheres to, is 
very common at present on the Gendarussa vulgaris—the Kalu- 
Waeraniya of the Singalese. A much larger species than either of 
these was pointed out to me on the Hon. Mr. Fortescue’s estate, at 
Kotmalu, inhabiting the leaves of the large green Aloe (Fourcroya 
gigantea). Another kind infests the Jack, another the Mango; and 
one, different from all, has just been brought to me from Dambool, ad- 
hering to the branch of a Lantana. 
During my recent excursion it was ascertained that the Coffee 
Coccus now exists very abundantly on many other trees, giving | | 
them the same aspect and producing similar effects. Thus, I have 
