28 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS [Jan..'l<J 



This species is a native of Chile and Venezuela, where it feeds upon 

 roots of grapes and at times becomes somewhat of a pest. It has been 

 the subject of a number of more or less extended papers and in one of 

 these Mayet 1 has recorded the astonishing fact that adults were 

 observed by him to issue from cysts that had been kept for a period 

 of seven years, during which time the insects had taken no food. The 

 emergence of the adult was induced by immersing the cysts in water 

 for a considerable period. Apparently this ability to lie dormant for 

 long periods is an adaptation to the peculiarities of the climate of the 

 insect's native land, the adult insects emerging normally during the 

 rainy season. Some one has said that in certain parts of Chile it rains 

 but once in seven years and sometimes skips this. 



The Stanford collection of Coccidae contains several cysts of this 

 species, collected in Chile by Lataste and received by the University 

 from Professor Cockerell in 1902. In December of 1917 several of 

 these cysts were opened by the present writer, the enclosed individuals 

 being found dead and shriveled as was to be expected. However, the 

 insect removed from one cyst was so soft and white as to induce the 

 belief that it must still be alive. There being no appendages the 

 movement of which might reveal the presence of life, histological 

 preparations were made from the specimen. 



These preparations have been examined by competent authorities, 

 including Professors F. M. McFarland and Harold Heath, all of whom 

 agree that the specimen must have been alive at the time it was 

 removed from the cyst or at the most but a very short time before. 

 The tissues appear in all respects to be perfectly normal, the nuclei 

 of the hypodermal cells and of the walls of the alimentary canal not 

 differing in any recognizable degree from those of the same organs 

 seen in preparations of other Coccids known to have been alive at the 

 time of fixation. Astonishing as this may seem, there is no reasonable 

 explanation other than that the insect was indeed alive. 



Correspondence with Professor Cockerell has elicited the informa- 

 tion that the material from which this specimen was taken came into 

 his hands in 1899 or 1900 or perhaps earlier. When they were collected 

 is not known, nor, of course, is it known how old they were when 

 they were collected. There is, however, the definite and indisputable 

 record that this insect remained alive for at least 17 years without food. 



It would be most interesting to know whether the insect could still 

 have transformed into an adult and issued from the cyst under the 

 stimulus of moisture. Unfortunately all the remaining cysts contain 

 only specimens that are unmistakably dead and shriveled and the 

 opportunity is past. G. F. FERRIS, Stanford University, California. 



a Mayet, V. Note sur Margarodes vitium Giard. Bull. Soc. Ent. 

 France (7), 6, p. 50. 1896. 



