BUGS. 



215 



while the legs and antennae are paler. The last named organs are ten-jointed, and 

 have the first two joints bulbous." 



The female scale forms a covering for the eggs and protects them from the rain and 

 severe weather of winter. When fresh from the eggs the young are very soft and ten- 

 der, provided with six distinct legs and capable of moving freely about. If the weather 

 is warm they soon leave the mother scale and crawl about in search of a tender place 

 on the bark or twig, into which they pierce their rostrum and become forever fixed. 

 Should the weather on the contrary prove cold and blustery they remain beneath the 

 scale, sometimes even for two or three days, until impelled by hunger they scatter all 

 over the branches and buds. At this time they are scarcely more than one hundredth 

 of an inch in length, about three times as long as wide, pale yellow with a deep 

 yellow spot in front and another near the end, the sides somewhat fringed with short 

 hairs, and the tip of the abdomen set with two stiff bristles, between which are placed 

 a pair of spinous hairs. 



After becoming fixed they steadily secrete the scale under which they rest, gradu- 

 ally becoming darker and harder, until by late summer they have attained their full 

 size, lay the eggs underneath the scale, and die. By this time the female has become 

 scarcely more than a bag of eggs, and the body has shrunken into a small particle at 

 the narrow end of the covering. 



The scales of the male are few in number, of small size, and are fixed either upon 

 the upper or lower sides of the leaves. No specific differences can be made out in 

 comparing the scales of those found upon the 

 apple with others which are fomid common 

 upon the maple, linden, and a great number of 

 other shade trees in and near our large cities 

 of the Middle States. But as the males of all 

 these have not yet been compared, no decision 

 can be reached as to their identity. 



Turning to the next sub-family, the Lecani- 

 ina, we find native and foreign forms which 

 live on the branches and leaves of trees and 

 plants as in the preceding subdivision. They 

 are equally pernicious to vegetation, and em- 

 brace many tropical or sub-tropical forms 

 which thrive in our hot-houses. 



The species of this gnrap, according to 

 Doctor Signoret, are either naked, inclosed, 

 or covered with waxy or cottony secretion, and are of very various forms. Some are 

 either gibbous, hemispherical, convex, warty, barnacle-shaped, or like little pellets of 

 cotton capped in front with a brown scale. There are also other kinds which resemble 

 the small marine shells of the genus Trivia, or the round smooth galls of various oak 

 leaves. Such of the males as have been observed possess an angular head with a num- 

 ber of eyes and ocelli, varying from four to ten, placed in front, behind, and upon the 

 sides, and have also stout, hairy, ten-jointed antenna?. 



As representative of this division we may remark the depressed scales of the 

 Lecaniuni hesperidum. It is a great pest to greenhouse florists, abounding 

 upon the orange, lemon, ivy, and numerous other plants. In the latitude of Wash- 

 ington and farther south it lives upon a great variety of plants in the open air, 



FIG. 204. Mi, 



Mytilaspis pinifolice, pine 

 Mytilaspis, male. 



leaf 



