315 



AUSTRALIAN PSYLLIDJ:. Pakt III. 



Bv Walter W. Froggatt, F.L.S 



(Plates iv.-v.). 



Since my last conti'ibutioii to the study of this Family of the 

 Homoptera (these Proceedings, 1901, p. 242) I have collected, and 

 received from my numerous correspondents, some new forms quite 

 as interesting as those previously described; and from the material 

 now in hand (as there still remain in my collection a number of 

 lerp-scales and galls, the makers of which have 3^et to be dis- 

 covered) the fauna bids fair to be the richest in the world in 

 respect of these tiny " leaf-Heas." Though the range of many 

 species is limited as far as we 3'et know, others have a very wide 

 distribution and are readily transported with their food-plants to 

 other countries. Rhiuocola eucalypfi, described by Maskell f rom 

 New Zealand, where he found it on the 3'oung foliage of the Blue 

 Gum, is to be found in every plant nurser}^ or garden about 

 Sydney where seedlings of this Eucalypt are growing. As the 

 tree is also common in Tasmania it is probably a native of that 

 Island. In the last Report of the Government Entomologist at 

 Cape Town it was recorded as plentiful in South Africa on its 

 food plant {Eucalyiotus glohiiJus). The tiny little aphis-like 

 Psiflla acaclcB-haileyana', which swarms over the ornamental 

 " Cootamundra Wattles " in this State, without apparently doing 

 an}' damage, was reported last season as having destroyed all the 

 flower buds of many shrubs of the same species growing about 

 the suburbs of Melbourne. 



The free psyllids infesting the Acacias and other scrub trees 

 seem to confine themselves to particular species, and are constant 

 in their habits; but tliose forming lerp-scales upon the Eucalypt s 

 have a much wider choice of host, and adapt tlieir structures to 



