439 



A NEW SPECIES OF WAX SCALE (CEROPLASTES 

 MURRAY I) FROM NEW GUINEA. 



By- Walter W. Froggatt, F.L.S., Government Entomologist. 



(Plate xiv.) 



The members of the genus Ceroplastes are chiefly confined to 

 t he Tropics, and of the sixty-five species recorded in Mrs. Fer- 

 nald's Catalogue of the Coccidse of the World, fifty-three are 

 described from the West Indies, Mexico, and Brazil; one is a 

 native of Australia; and one, the "Indian Wax Scale," has 

 become cosmopolitan, and, accidentally introduced into Australia, 

 is a troublesome garden and orchard pest. These curious coccids 

 have t lie power of producing a quantity of waxy secretion, form- 

 ing a protective covering over the otherwise soft and naked female 

 coceid. The secretion used by the cosmopolitan "Indian Wax 

 Scale (Ceroplastes ceriferus) is soft and watery; that of the "Red 

 Wax Scale" (Ceroplastes rubens) forms a hard crystalline box 

 over the coceid; while the "Wild Mango Wax Scale" (Ceroplastes 

 murrayi) produces a solid mass of hard, white, wax-like secretion, 

 forming a rounded dome over the resting gravid female eoccid. 



I am indebted to my valued friend, Mr. George H. Murray, for 

 a fine series of these wonderful coccids, which, he states, are very 

 common on the branches of the wild mango growing in the forests 

 fringing the Kikori River, Delta Division, British New Guinea. 

 My thanks are due to the Under-Secretary of Agriculture (Mr. 

 Geo. Valder) for permission to use the beautiful plate drawn by 

 Mr. E. H. Zeck, of the Artists' Branch, at the Government Print- 

 ing Office. 



Ceroplastes murrayi, n.sp. (Plate xiv.). 

 First stage, 9 ,esf - Flattened star-shaped, slightly convex in 

 centre, composed of crystalline plates, an oval one covering the 



