46 Transactions. — Zoology. 



larger twigs ; as indeed is usual in many cases. The size of 

 Coccids is subject to much variation according to the food- 

 plant, and cannot be considered as being a character of any 

 importance. 



Mytilaspis nivea, sp. nov. Plate I., fig. 10. 



Female puparium elongated, usually straight, narrow, 

 snowy-white. Pellicles terminal, yellow. The length may be 

 about ^jjin. ; but the puparia are usually so massed together, 

 forming a snowy heap on the twig, that it is not easy to make 

 them out separately. 



Male puparium similar to that of the female, but smaller. 

 Length about ^jin. Not carinated. 



Adult female brown. Form normal. Abdomen ending 

 with a small median depression, at each side of which is a 

 pointed triangular lobe, and after an interval another similar 

 lobe of the same size. Abdominal margin deeply serrated, 

 and bearing at each side three or four rather strong spines. 

 The groups of spinnerets are five : upper group with 3 or 

 4 orifices ; upper laterals, 10 to 12 ; lower laterals, 16 

 to 24. 



Adult male yellow ; length about ^m. There are no 

 characters specially distinguishing it from others of the genus. 



Hab. In Australia, on Melaleuca nodosa. Specimens from 

 Mr. Froggatt, from Bankstown, near Sydney. 



A species by no means far removed from M. casuarince, 

 Mask. (1892), but differing principally in the four conical lobes 

 and in the stronger marginal spines. Tbe puparia look exactly 

 like snow on the twigs. 



'o 1 - 



Mytilaspis pallida, Green (var. '?). 



I have received from Mr. Koebele a Mytilaspis on Podo- 

 carpus sp., imported into Honolulu from Japan, which seems 

 to me to be so close to a species in Ceylon to which Mr. Green 

 proposes to give the name of M. pallida that I believe it to 

 be identical. Mr. Green has not yet published a description 

 of his insect. It is possible that it, and mine, may in the end 

 turn out to be varieties of M. citricola, Packard, an insect 

 which I find to infest not only Citrus but many other plants 

 in warm countries. The puparium of M. pallida resembles 

 much that of M. citricola, with a rather paler colour ; the 

 lobes and spines of the abdominal extremity are also nearly 

 similar, but smaller and finer. I am not clear about the 

 spinneret-groups, and the abdominal extremity seems more 

 truncate than in M. citricola. But in any case the Cin- 

 galese and the Japanese forms appear to be very closely 

 allied. 



