Bugs, Cicadas, Aphids, and Scale-insects 181 



tunity to make easy acquaintance with one or two species at our breakfast- 

 tables; the flattish, nearly circular little red-brown spots, or the more 

 ovate blackish spots, which are occasionally to be seen on carelessly packed 

 oranges are scale-insects and excellent examples of the extreme of degen- 

 erate, quiescent type. The adult male scale-insects, unlike the females, 

 are winged (although possessing but a single pair) and have eyes, an- 

 tennae, and legs, but, strangely enough, no mouth-parts nor mouth-opening, 

 so that they can take no food and must necessarily have but a few hours or 

 perhaps days, at most, of life. And they are much more rarely seen 

 than the females. Indeed, of many scale-insect species the males are not 

 yet known, it being possible that in some species there is no male sex at 

 all. 



The economic importance of the scale-insects has been keenly appre- 

 ciated on the Pacific Coast ever since fruit-growing came to be a leading 

 industry there, but the rest of the United States had not had to worry itself 

 much because of the existence of these insect-scourges until recent years. 

 A single Coccid species, however, has 

 within ten years called the attention 

 of entomologists and orchardmen 

 and legislators all over the country to 

 itself in a very illuminating manner. 

 This species, the ill-named San Jose 

 scale, Aspidiotus perniciosus, which 

 should rather be called "the perni- 

 cious scale," or, if not that, then the 

 Oriental scale, as it is a native of Japan 

 or China,-was first made known to 

 science, and named, by Prof. J. H. Corn- 

 stock in 1880. Professor Comstock's specimens were collected in the Santa 

 Clara Valley near San Jose, California. How much earlier the species 

 had been brought to California is not known, but at the time of its naming 

 by Professor Comstock it was already recognized by California fruit-growers 

 as a serious pest, and Comstock wrote: "From what I have seen of it I think 

 it is the most pernicious scale-insect known in this country." In August, 

 1893, it was found to have got a footing in the east, and since then no other 

 injurious insect indeed hardly all others together has received such con- 

 stant and excited attention as has this obscure little pest. It is found now 

 in every state and territory of the Union, and in Canada as well, and in 

 thirty-five states has been the subject of hurried and only partly well- 

 advised legislation. This legislation has been directed toward restricting 

 its spread by (a) quarantining it at the states' borders, and (6) inspecting 

 orchards and nurseries for it within the state and attempting to stamp it 



