1885.1 * ^57 



NOTE ON SOME BRITISH COCCIDJE. 

 ET J. W. DOUaLAS, F.E.S. 



During tlie winter and spring oC several recent years I collected 

 the male scales of Lecanium attached to the branches of different 

 trees, hoping to get therefrom the imago, but always without result ; 

 and I now believe this was because the scales were gathered too soon, 

 and the tenant died, or that they were collected too late, that is, that 

 the imago had previously come out. However, this year I collected 

 some male scales from hawthorn early in April, and in the last week 

 of the month I had the pleasure of obtaining from them some per- 

 fected forms {cf. ante p. 14). 



Thus encouraged, I collected from several trees in the garden 

 (sycamore, horse-chestnut, hazel-nut, apple, cherry) a good many of 

 the white male scales of Lecanium, leaving them attached to the bark ; 

 except when the shoots were upright, as in the case of the hawthorn 

 already alluded to, these scales were always on the under-side of the 

 shoot, either of the growth of the last or the previous year ; they 

 were placed by me, each kind separate, in wide-mouthed glass bottles 

 covered with gauze. Some (it was soon seen by their transparency) 

 were empty, the imago having emerged ; many contained dead pupse, 

 or even perfected insects ; and others yielded perfect insects, which, 

 before coming out, betrayed their presence by the protrusion from one 

 end of the scale of two long, white, delicate filaments, which lay hori- 

 zontally on the bark for a day or two before the emergence. The 

 opposite end of the scale was always tightly adherent to the bark. 



I did not in any instance see the actual exit from the scale, which 

 it is well known is effected backwards ; but I noticed in some cases 

 that a day or so before it occurs the posterior portion of the scale is 

 raised up from the bark, and the wings of the imago are clearly visible 

 beneath, indeed, the ends of them project a little beyond the end of 

 the scale ; this position and condition being maintained for some 

 hours. 



The emerged males live but a few hours. They cling tenaciously 

 to the bark of the twigs, and move about on them slowly without 

 animation. The wings overlap each other horizontally above the ab- 

 domen, and considering their great development and the large size of 

 the thorax, it might have been supposed that the insects had great 

 power of flight, but it is not so, for the flight amounts to scarcely 

 more than jumps with extended wings ; the insect, after spreading 

 these out, hesitates for an instant before springing, just like many 

 beetles do. 



