Maskell. — Further Notes on Coccidse. 46 



accounts, and in the replies of farmers to questions from officials 

 or committees, we find sulphur a common ingredient in the 

 thousand-and-one mixtures recommended, I doubt very much if 

 anybody could give an intelligent reason for its employment. 



No harm will therefore have been done, I think, if this 

 paper should induce gardeners and fruit-growers to go direct to 

 the true origin of disease in their trees and neglect the 

 secondary one. That the fungus will grow independently of 

 scale-insects is, of course, indisputable : but those who wisely 

 consider it as, in the vast majority of cases, merely an accessory 

 to their presence, and who set themselves to destroy the Coccidae 

 or AphidiJffi on the plants, will find the black fungus also very 

 quickly disappear. 



EXPLANATION OF PLATE I. 



Fig. Irt. Ctenochiton elcBocar-pi (larva) magnified, with waxy test removed ; 

 showing excreting organ, and bubble of honeydew. 



Fig. 16. Abdominal extremity of same, magnified, with waxy fringe ; honey- 

 dew bubble bursting. 



Fig. 2a. Fungoid growth on twig. 



Fig. 2&. Fungoid growth on leaf. 



Fig. 2c. ] 



Fig. Id. \ Varieties of fungoid growths. 



Fig. 2e. j 



Aet. III. — Further Notes on New Zealand Coccidse. 



By W. M. Maskell, F.R.M.S. 



[Read before tlw Wellington Philosophical Society, 19t/( January, 1887.] 



Plate II. 



Group COCCIDIN^. 



Icerya purchasi, mihi. Plate II., figs. 1-4 (male). 



By the kindness of the Rev. Mr. Colenso, of Napier, I have 

 received some specimens of the male of this species. No 

 published description of the male Icerya is known to me, 

 though the insect must be common in California. The follow- 

 ing description is therefore here given : — 



Male insect large ; body red, with a shining, diamond- 

 shaped, black patch on the dorsal surface of the thorax ; legs 

 and antennas black ; wings dark-brown, marked with numbers 

 of parallel, wavy, oblique, narrow stripes ; main nervure red, 

 branching once ; there are also two longitudinal whitish stripes 

 in each wing. Antennae long, slender, with ten joints, all 

 nearly equal ; the last joint is clavate ; all except the first are 

 constricted in the middle and with two dilations, at each of 

 which there is a ring of very long hairs, giving to the antennas 



