510 PRIVATE LIVES OF INSECTS. 



to beetles, they make round holes in the ground, from which 

 they come forth. 



Private Life of the Coccus of the Vine. 



One of your correspondents asked a question, some time 

 ago, about the coccus of the vine, and in asking, mentioned 

 a circumstance of which I was then ignorant, and of which 

 I believe many are still ignorant, for I have never seen it 

 elsewhere in print ; that out of the coccus there comes a 

 multitude of little red spiders. I have since attended to these 

 cocci, and compiled their history. Here it is : — 



Our vines are often annoyed, and sometimes rendered 

 barren, by an insect which is called the vine-gall, or vine- 

 coccus. The harm it does the vines is by pricking holes in 

 the rind, and thereby letting out the sap, or, as the gardeners 

 scientifically term it, making the vines bleed. Our climate is 

 not hot enough for this insect to breed very fast out of doors ; 

 but in hothouses it thrives and swarms, often doing great 

 mischief. Sometimes there are such hosts of them, that the 

 young shoots are covered with a white cotton, which is in 

 reality a resinous gum, produced by the cocci. The coccus 

 pierces the bark by means of a sharp and long sucker, which 

 goes to the very centre of the shoot, causing the sap instantly 

 to flow in abundance. This piercing apparatus, although, 

 like other insects' mouths, in the head, is bent so far under 

 the breast, that it appears to proceed from that part, and I 

 find has been often so described. The cocci in the young, or 

 larva state, are all alike ; they look just exactly like little tiny 

 tortoises fixed to the rind, and sometimes leaves, of the vine. 

 Like other animals, the cocci are males and females ; the males 

 are desperate rovers. When they are tired of vegetating, they 

 push a hole through the back of their tortoise-like shell, and 

 fly away ; the females undergo no change in form on coming 

 of age, nor do they ever break loose from their moorings. 



The male and female coccus are very different not only in 

 size, but make : the male is a small, active, two-winged fly ; 

 the female is a large, lazy, and almost lifeless lump, ten times 

 the size of the male, and so closely attached to the rind of the 

 young shoots on which she feeds, that you cannot get her 

 away without killing her. When the female has attained this 



