872 HENRY SHIiMER, M. D. 



and if needs be a new family, for its reception, however slow the scientific 

 world may be to adopt it, and however loth I may be to genus manufacturing. 



In this case it appears necessary, at least, to place this insect in a sub-family 

 CoccincE; even in this stejD there is a manifest defect, failing to reach out far 

 enough. 



"We have in the section Monomera already two families, Dactylosphaeridcz, 

 (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sciences Phil., Jan. 1857, — tarsi with one joint and two claws,) 

 and Coccidce, (tarsi with one joint and one claw.) 



May we not, with equal propriety, construct a new family for this insect — 

 Tarsi with one joint and no claw? If these views are justifiable in the minds 

 of the scientific world, we, therefore, have here a new genus, which may be 

 named Lepidosaphes (from Xctij, a scale, and aatpfxi, distinct), the principal cha- 

 racters of which, differing from tlie two families of the Monomera, are : Fourdi- 

 gituli terminated by puloilli or arolia, and no claw, and the female living beneath a 

 scale or shell-like habitation^of her own constructing, and with equal propriety a 

 new Family, Lepidosaphidoe, may be formed. 



I do not introduce these ideas out of a desire to be heard, or to engage in Fa- 

 mily-making. This insect has been under observation a long time, according 

 to Authors, both in Eurojie and America. 



Westwood informs us that the females of Cocci and Asjyidioti lose all traces of 

 articulations in the body as well as losing their limbs, becoming motionless and 

 apparently senseless objects of animal matter, resembling, in a measure, the 

 vegetable excrescences called galls. 



My observations, in jDart, subjoined with day and date, for the purpose of 

 giving more complete assurance, and to enable any other observer to verify 

 them, find in the case of this insect a very different state of things. The body 

 of the female is distinctly articulate during the entire period of her existence, 

 and, without doubt, is fully as sensative as other articulates. The absence of 

 limbs is nothing more than an evidence of the economy of nature; limbs are 

 furnished these insects, as others, while they need them, when they are no 

 longer needed, they are lost; this loss is no evidence of "degeneration" "as 

 they approach the imago state." Indeed, legs would only be an incumbrance 

 to the animal, in the state of life it leads beneath its little shell-like habitation. 



Nor do I introduce these views in opposition to those of Linna:as, Gocffroy, 

 Fabricius, Burmeister, Curtis, licaumer, Westivood, and other great leaders and 

 close observers in natural science. I have nothing to say about what they saw, 

 but I simply give a brief history of what J saw, with some reflections ujion the 

 results which I conceive derived therefrom. 



If these views are justifiable, we have characters sufficient for a new Family 

 differing from the Coccidoi. 



