APPLE INSECTS 



173 



shriveled, dead body of the mother tucked away at the smaller 

 end (Fig. 173). Thus hibernation in the egg stage lasts for 

 8 or 9 months, the time of hatching in the spring depending much 

 on weather conditions. Hatching may begin as early as the 

 middle of May in the North, but in 1907 it was a month later 

 in New York. The mere specks of active six-legged, pale yel- 

 lowish-white young (Fig. 171) that hatch from the eggs soon 

 crawl out from under the scale and in a few hours settle down 

 on the bark, insert their long, thread-like sucking tube, secrete 



Fig. 171. 



Apple branch infested with oyster-shell scale showing newly hatched 

 lice. 



a covering of cottony fibers, and the females never move from 

 that spot (Fig. 172). The sexes are alike at birth, and after 

 feeding a few days shed their skin, becoming grub-like creatures 

 without legs or antennae. Growth continues with no apparent 

 difference between the sexes until it is necessary to molt again, 

 when it is seen that a winged insect, the male, is being developed 

 under some of the scales. This second cast skin of the female 

 is added to the scale-covering; a few days later the fully de- 

 veloped, delicate, two-winged male insect without mouth parts 



