152 Transactions. — Zoology. 



ing two short terminal spines. Feet and digitules as in the 

 adult, but the tibia is shorter than the tarsus. 



Male pupao inhabiting white cottony masses, very small, 

 intermingled with the meal and egg-masses of the females ; 

 they do not seem to form regular sacs. 



Adult male brown in colour, covered with thin whitish 

 meal ; length about o'oin. ; general form normal of the genus, 

 with slender thorax and abdomen and short spike ; from the 

 last abdominal segment spring two not very long setge, bearing 

 cotton, and forming the usual "tails." x\ntennae with ten 

 rather thick joints, all subequal in length, the second being 

 a good deal thicker than the rest ; all the joints bear several 

 short hairs. Feet slender, hairy ; digitules fine hairs. Eyes 

 four, two dorsal, two ventral ; no dorsal ocelli, but at each side 

 there is one, on the edge. 



Hah. In New Zealand, on Araucaria hidivillii, at Auck- 

 land, and spreading from that to Araucaria excelsa and other 

 adjacent conifers. My specimens are from the garden of 

 the late Mr. Justice Gillies, where the insect has been plen- 

 tiful. It cannot be looked on as indigenous to New Zealand : 

 in all probability it is an importation from Australia ; Queens- 

 land may be perhaps the original locality. 



If left undisturbed, D. aurilanatus seems to smother the 

 plant with its numbers of adults, pupee, and egg-masses, and 

 soon renders it unsightly. In a warm climate, I fancy, it 

 would spread rapidly, as the eggs are very numerous and the 

 larvae very active. 



The appearance of this insect is peculiar, and in a specimen 

 cleared from cotton not without beauty, from the dark-purple 

 of the body contrasted with the bright-golden colour of the 

 excreted meal, and the mode of arrangement of the latter ; and 

 I think it cannot be confounded with any other species of the 

 genus. The fact that individual females may be found with 

 either seven or eight joints in the antennae is abnormal ; but a 

 similar discrepancy is reported in Dactylojnus bromelicB, Bouche 

 (Signoret, " Essai," p. 344), a South American species. 



Dactylopius obtectus sp. nov. Plate VI., figs. 12-21. 



Adult female sheltering itself beneath a leaf- or bud-scale 

 of the food-plant ; excreting in this position much white cotton, 

 in which the eggs are laid. Colour red ; body elliptical, con- 

 vex, segmented, shrivelling after gestation ; length about -g^oin. ; 

 the last segment of the abdomen is slightly produced cylin- 

 drically, with inconspicuous setiferous anal tubercles. Mentuni 

 dimerous, with several short hairs at the tip. Antennae of 

 eight joints, subequal except the last, which is irregularly fusi- 

 form and longer than aiiy two others. Anogenital ring com- 

 pound, with six hairs. Spinnerets scattered all over the body 



