THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST 57 



NOTES ON COCCID.E \ II. (HEMIPTERA).* 



BY G. F, FERRIS, 

 Stanford University, Calif. 



A Review of MacGillivray's "The Coccid/E." 



The impression seems quite generally to have prevailed (the present writer 

 must confess to not having been immune to it) that the ability to recognize a 

 few of our common orchard, shade tree and green-house scale insects entitles 

 its possessor to recognition as a Coccidologist. It is, perhaps, in part this circum- 

 stance that has been responsible for the fact that while there have been many 

 who have written on the Coccidse there have been relatively few who have had 

 any very profound knowledge of the group. The systematic literature, although 

 impressive in quantity, has never been so in quality, in fact only too rarely has 

 it risen above the level of hopeless mediocrity, while all too often it has descended 

 even to the point of utter puerility. The greatest task before the present-day 

 students of the Coccidae (and those for some time to come) is that of over- 

 coming this handicap. 



In the face of these conditions it is obvious that the character of any treat- 

 ment of the group that is based wholly or in large part upon the literature alone 

 will be more or less definitely predetermined. At the best it can be of a very 

 considerable, even if but temporary, usefulness by bringing the scattered litera- 

 ture to a focus and serving as a sort of point of departure. At the worst, if to 

 the errors inherent in the sources from which it is drawn there be added an undue 

 number for which the compiler is responsible, the possibility of usefulness 

 may, to a very large extent, disappear. Not only may the task of which I 

 have spoken above not be lightened, it may even to some extent be increased. 

 This I consider, on the whole, to be the efifect of MacGillivray's recent book, 

 'The Coccidffi." 



I do not need to be reminded that many of the criticisms of this book that 

 I shall express are matters of opinion. Consequently, I may be pardoned for 

 pointing out that as a basis for the opinions that I shall present I have avail- 

 able what is possibly the second largest collection of Coccidae in the United 

 States, and that I have personally examined with varying degrees of thorough- 

 ness some hundreds of species in the group. On the other hand, MacGillivray 

 very clearly indicates in the preface of his book that it is based chiefly upon 

 the literature alone, and it is obvious from the text that his acquaintance with 

 the insects themselves is relatively limited. Even the air of profundity im- 

 parted by the special terminology employed and the appearance of authority 

 with which the material is presented cannot entirely conceal this fact. 



I cannot in any paper of reasonable length deal in great detail with the 

 book. An extended analysis must wait upon revisional studies of the various 

 groups, and I am presenting here a consideration only of the more obvious 

 errors and of the conclusions in which I differ most widely from MacGillivray. 

 It is, for instance, no part of my intention to consider the many typographical 

 errors and other evidences of carelessness, such for example as the constant 

 misspelling of Antonina (pages 122. 123. 145, 146, 476) and ariditatis (pages 

 182 and 476). 



*Continiied from Canadian Entomologist 52:65. (1920.) 

 March, 1921 



