im.] 225 



ON A NEW TEA PEST FROJI INDIA. 

 BY E. EENEST GREEN, F.E.S. 



In March last I received from Dr. George Watt, Reporter on 

 Economic Products to the Grovernment of India, specimens of a new 

 scale insect from the Duars, a tea district in north-east Bengal. Dr. 

 Watt supposed the insect to be allied to Ceroplastcs, but examination 

 shows it to belong to Comstock's genus Cerococcus, which has hitherto 

 been recorded from A merica only, (though I am inclined to consider 

 the Australasian genus Solenophora, Mask., as scarcely separable from 

 Cerococcus). 



The present species is quite distinct from any of those known 

 from America, and is now described under the name of 



Cerococcus eicoides, n. sp. 



Test of adult female dull reddish-brown, more or less obscured by a coating of 

 black fungus, subspherical ; median dorsal area distinctly concave, with what appears 

 to be the first larval pellicle embedded in the centre. Sides of test irregularly fluted 

 or segmented, as if formed by the fusion of numerous recurved marginal processes. 

 In some examples this lateral area extends further inwards, leaving only a small 

 median concave area; in others the concavity is quite extensive (fig. 1). The test 

 is hard and compact, and completely encloses the insect, leaving only a conspicuous 

 orifice with raised rim above the posterior extremity. On each side, close to the 

 juncture of the lateral with the median area, are three small groups of minute 

 perforations corresponding with some niultilocular glands on the body of the insect. 

 In some specimens a pinkish-white filament projects from each of these perforated 

 spots, extending inwards over the concave median area : but these filaments are very 

 brittle and easily broken off. Diameter of fully developed example about 3 mm., 

 height, 1-25 to 1-50 mm. 



Adult female (figs. 2 and 3) irregularly elliptical, broadest across the post- 

 thoracic region ; median dorsal area slightly concave, with four pairs of depressed 

 spots. On each side, situated slightly within the margin on the dorsal surface, are 

 three multilocular glandular patches, consisting of a cluster of from three to seven 

 large oval pores intermixed with small circular pores and surrounded by an irregular 

 ring of figure-of-8 shaped pores (fig. 4). These glands appear to be of the same 

 nature as those occurring in the neighbourhood of the spiracular orifices in the 

 several species of Carteria, and their function is probably identical. By the secre- 

 tion of porous waxy filaments a passage in the compact test is secured, admitting a 

 sufficient supply of air while preventing the entrance of water. The rudimentary 

 antennae, each consisting of a chitinous tubercle surmounted by a ring of stout hairs 

 (fig. 5), are situated in slight indentations on the extreme anterior margin. The 

 spiracles, situated within the margin on the ventral surface, are large and well 

 defined, but the parastigmatic glands, consisting of two or three pores only, are very 

 inconspicuous. The mouth-parts are moderately large, the mentum distinctly 

 2-jointed. The so-called anal lobes (fig. 6) are strongly chitinous and dark coloured, 

 bearing at the extremity a rather short stout seta, and on the inner edge three or four 

 stout spines. Between the lobes, and situated dorsally, is a prominent chitinous tri- 

 angular plate. The anal ring bears eight longish stout hairs : and on the ventral 



