Annual Meeti?ig at St. Joseph. 205 



and twigs, and extracted the sap, causing the foliage to turn yellow 

 and fall. About the same time it appeared in great numbers on 

 the shade trees along the sidewalks and in the parks of St. Louis. 



Specimens were sent to me for determination by the editors of 

 the Post- Dispatch, in which paper aj)peared subsequently a very 

 graphic account of the insect and its depredations. By personal 

 examination made soon after, I found it abundant on the maples, 

 sycamores, elms, lindens, and some other shade trees throughout 

 the city. ♦ All the trees that were badly infested had scant and 

 sickly foliage, and in the course of the summer many of the young 

 trees perished outright. The insect did not occur in noticeable 

 numbers in Kirkwood, nor, so far as I could learn, elsewhere in St. 

 Louis county, but I was informed of its presence in many other 

 localities in the State. 



This Pidvinaria — which is the sole representative of its genus 

 yet discovered in the United States — is one of the largest and most 

 conspicuous species of the bark louse family. It was first described 

 by Mr. Rathvon, who found it in Pennsylvania, on the branches 

 and twigs of the linden or basswood ( Tiliu). In the West a few 

 years later. Prof. Riley discovered it in considerable numbers on 

 maple and Osage orange, and, not having seen Mr. Rathvon's arti- 

 cle, briefly described it as Lecanium maclura, Subsequently the 

 late, young and gifted J. D. Putnam, of the Davenport, Iowa, 

 Academy of Sciences, having found out its identity, gave, to the 

 public its complete history. 



The mature female has the form of an oblong, brown, wrink- 

 led scale, adout one-sixth of an inch in length, from the posterior 

 end of which exudes innumerable filaments of snow-white cottony 

 matter, forming a puffy mass as large as a hazelnut. Couceoled in 

 this mass are the pale orange-colored eggs, and the newly hatched 

 young, to the number of from five hundred to two thousand. The 

 young begin to spread over the branches in May, and attach them- 

 selves to the succulent parts, which they pierce with their pointed 

 beaks, and remain stationary, subsisting on the sap. The scale of 

 the male iusect does not show the cottony filaments, and is fre- 

 quently found on the leaves. Late in summer this sex acquires 

 wings of a brilliant rose color. Its season in the winged state is 

 short, seldom exceeding two or three days. 



This bark louse is so conspicuous that it attracts many natural 

 enemies, such as cannibal bugs and beetles, while several mites and 

 minute insects live among and feed upon the eggs and young lice. 



