JAMES BURTON ON A SPECIES OF ALEURODES. y 



related Coccidae or Scale-insects. The meal with which the whole 

 insect is covered is a troublesome feature in mounting, as it resists 

 water or weak spirit, and the use of stronger spirit usually results 

 in the waxy secretion being removed at the last stage of the 

 mounting and it then looks like dirt in the finished slide. With 

 turpentine, etc., for balsam mounts it is dissolved. On the dorsal 

 aspect of the last segment of the body there is a peculiar organ of 

 some interest. It is very well shown in the plates illustrating 

 Mr. Lewis's paper referred to above, but it is not easy to make out 

 distinctly in mounted specimens. The Aphides, as is well known, 

 secrete a large quantity of the sticky sweet substance known as 

 " honey-dew," and the Aleurodes do the same. In most species 

 of Aphides the organs which emit this substance are easily seen, 

 and consist of two tubes near the end of the body set one on each 

 side pointing upwards and backwards. It has been suggested 

 that possibly the organ in Aleurodes on the last segment may 

 serve the same purpose, but it seems scarcely likely considering 

 its structure. It is formed of a short, hollow, crater-like base, 

 from which projects a sort of papilla covered with hairs. On one 

 occasion I was examining a leaf with many pupae upon it, when I 

 was called away for about an hour. On my return a fly had 

 emerged, its wings were not quite perfectly extended. It was 

 covered with a glass and a drop of chloroform was run under, 

 and almost immediately that the creature felt its influence it 

 emitted a large drop of honey-dew. It was impossible to see the 

 precise spot from which it came, but it was between the wings 

 towards the anal end of the abdomen, and might have come 

 actually from the anus. 



Aleurodes was formerly classed with the Scale-insects, but the 

 genus now forms a separate family under the name of Aleurodidae, 

 placed between the Aphides and the Scale-insects. There are 

 several reasons for this arrangement. The Aphides are not winged 

 except in the sexual stage. In the Scale-insects the male has two 

 wings only, the female none, while the imago of Aleurodes has 



