1881.] 175 



Fabricius appears to have first identified characias, Bosc, with 

 urticce, Lin., but apparently he was not very sure, for he uses the 

 latter only as synonym of the former, which he still keeps, with an 

 expression of doubt, as a Coccus. (S. R., p. 311.) 



Of De Geer's species the figure is rude and unsatisfactory, but 

 the description, as follows, is sufficient to denote our species : — 



" Ce sont un grand nombre de flocons cotonneux en forme de lames feuilleteea 

 plates d'un blanc eclatant, qui couvrent tout le deesus du corps et le debordent m6me 

 de tous les cotes ; ces lames, qui sont un peu courbees, y sont placees tres-reguliere- 

 ment, se couvrent un peu les unes les autres, ou arrangees comme des tuilles ou 

 comme les ecailles des poissons ; il y en a d'abord une coucbe au milieu du corps, 

 plus court es que les autres et arrangees sur deux lignes, de facon que celles de l'une 

 de ces lignes vont rencontrer celles de l'autre rang par leur base, et elles represented 

 ensemble comme une petite feuille de'coupee. Les autres lames placees de deux 

 cotes de la tete jusqu' au derriere, et formant deux rangs distincts, sont beaucoup 

 plus longues que celles du milieu, comme je l'ai dit, debordant le corps considerable- 

 ; ment, et elles sont toutes un peu courbees et dirigees vers le derriere." 



Zetterstedt described urticce in order to point out the differences 

 between it and his chiton. 



The descriptions of Coccus uva, Modeer, and Dortliesia Delavauxi, 

 Thibaut, both referred to this species by Signoret, I have not been 

 able to see. 



Burmeister (I. c.) refers " Coccus glechomce, Fabr." (without 

 further indication), to the genus Dorthesia, as a distinct species, but I 

 cannot find the description. 



The male is described as of a light brown colour, smaller than the 

 female, elongate ; the head, thorax, and abdomen distinct ; no rostrum ; 

 the antennae very long, filiform, 9-jointed ; wings, two (anterior), long, 

 pale-greyish, with two longitudinal nervures (Westwood says there 

 are also two minute halteres, terminated by a short seta) ; the abdomen 

 at its termination with a pencil of long, fine, white hairs. The geni- 

 talia are of peculiar form. 



The male, according to the observations of its original discoverer, 

 as given by Amyot and Serville, op. cit., p. 623, is polygamous. 



" It is in the month of September, after the third or fourth moult, that the 

 males appear, but only few in number. The author says that it was with much 

 trouble that he found four or five of them among a great quantity of females. More 

 slender than these, they are also more active ; they run with their wings elevated 

 from one female to another, and confer their favours according to their caprice. 

 After some days of such a course, the male retires to the root of a plant, under a 

 stone, where its inactive body becomes covered all over with a very fine cottony 

 matter, which has very much the appeai*ance of mouldiness, and tbere, doubtless, it 

 dies. The females have one moult after coupling, they soon after retire into the 



