Maskell. — On Coccididse. 217 



because, although it was first made known by Dr. Anderson 

 in 1790-91, and mentioned since that time by several writers 

 — including Westwood, 1853, and Signoret, 1872 — all of these 

 appear to have confined their attention to the waxy tests, and 

 I am not aware that the insect itself has ever yet been fully 

 described. Signoret merely says that it is subglobular, and 

 slightly prolonged posteriorly. Fourteen species of Geroplastes 

 from different countries have received names, but probably 

 several of these are really identical : e.g., G. chilensis, Gray, 

 and C. vinsonii, Sign., and others, may all be really G. 

 ceriferus. The only species in which the adult females have 

 been reported hitherto as exhibiting a prolongation of the 

 abdomen are C. ceriferus, G. psidii, Chav., C. cassia, Chav., 

 G. fairmairei, Sign., and C. cirripediformis, Comstock (an 

 American insect), and all these also have nearly similar 

 conical spiracular spines. I am not sure whether all the 

 last-named species may be really distinct or not. 



Mr. Cotes, in the " Indian Museum Notes," vol. ii., No. 3, 

 1891, gives an excellent account of the wax of this species, 

 and seems to think that the insect is not very common in 

 India. It may, however, be an inhabitant of many tropical 

 or subtropical countries. From Mr. Cotes's account I gather 

 that the wax is not likely to have much commercial value, 

 even if it could be produced in large quantities. 



Since writing the foregoing I have more carefully studied 

 Signoret' s description of G. fairmairei, Targioni (1858), a 

 species from Montevideo, and also his figures, especially of 

 the spiracular spines, and I have come to the conclusion that 

 this species is identical with C. ceriferus. The dermal spots 

 and markings shown in Signoret's plate ix., fig. 7, may be faintly 

 detected in some of my Australian insects — early adults — and 

 the other characters also agree. On the whole it seems 

 probable that several species of Geroplastes may be considered 

 as synonyms of Anderson's insect, which was first described 

 in 1791. 



Subdivision LECANIDiE. 



Genus Lecanium, Illiger. 



Lecanium baccatum, Maskell. N.Z. Trans., vol, xxiv., 1891, 

 p. 20. 



Mr. J. G. 0. Tepper, in a letter to me, says, " In South 

 Australia these insects in a young state, yet nearly full-grown, 

 are always of a pure bluish-white, which with advancing age 

 becomes yellowish. The species, though not exactly rare, 

 has been always local, and the various colonies, affecting a 

 single branch or bush, are usually at considerable distances 

 apart." 



