174 Journal Xew York Entomological Society, t^'o'- ^i^- 



of Lasiits aphidicola. The figures published by Howard.* Sanders' 

 and Forbes^" of the hirva of Hypcraspis sigiiata. wliich feeds on the 

 eggs of the cottony maple scale {Piilvinaria iiiiiiiiiicrabilis) , show that 

 it is covered with tufts of delicate white wax and closely resembles 

 the Brachyacantba larva. The larva of H. biiiotata. which preys on 

 the same scale, has, judging from Sanders' figure, much shorter 

 tufts of wax than H. sigiiafa. Howard says of the latter: "The 

 striking likeness of the larv:e of the Hypcraspis to a mealy bug will 

 at once be noticed. Were it feeding upon mealy bugs instead of 

 u])Oii Pulvinarias (and it frequently does feed upon mealy bugs) it 

 would at once be evident that we have here a clear case of what Pro- 

 fessor Poulton calls 'aggressive mimicry.'" It is clear, however, that 

 even the theory of aggressive mimicry is inapplicable to this particular 

 case, since the Coccids are neither able to see nor to escape irow 

 the enemies of their eggs. Is it not simpler to assume that these 

 Coccinellid larvse secrete an abundance of wax simply because they 

 feed on organisms which, as shown by their secretions in turn, con- 

 tain large quantities of substances that are readily convertilile 

 into wax ? 



Still another Coccinellid larva closely resembling BracltyacantluJ 

 is that of the Australian CryptoUriiiiis uwutrouzicri, which in its 

 native country feeds on waxy Coccids of the genera Dactylopius and 

 Eriococcus and when introduced iiUo Hawaii proved to be very use- 

 ful in destroying the Pith'i)iaria psidii of the coffee plantations. 

 Lounsbury's figures of this Coccinellid, reproduced by Marchal" indi- 

 cate that its pupa is formed within the larval skin exactly as in 

 Bracliyacaiitha. 



^ Beneficial Work of Hyperaspis signata (.A.bstract), Proc. Twelfth Ann. 

 Meet. Assoc. Econ. Ent., Bull., No. 26, N.S., U. S. Dept. Agric, 1900, pp. 17, 

 18. I fig. 



"The Cottony Maple Scale. Circ. Xo. 64. U. S. Dept. Agric, 1905. 7 pp., 

 4 figs. 



'" Twenty-fourth Report of the State Entomologist on the Noxious and 

 Beneficial Insects of the State of Illinois. Bloomington, 1908. 168 pp., 11 pis., 

 8 text figs. 



" Utilisation des Insectes Auxiliaires Entomophages dans la Lutte contre 

 les Insectes nuisiblus a I'Agriculture. Ann. de I'lnst. Nat. Agron. (2), VI, 

 1907, pp. 1-74, 26 figs. 



