4 Transactions. — Zoology. 



Genus Diaspis, Costa. 

 Diaspis pinnulifera, sp. nov. Plate I., figs. 13-16. 



Female puparium circular or sub-circular, reddish-brown, 

 flat ; the pellicles sub-central, yellow. Diameter about xV^i- 



Male puparium elongated, %vhite, distinctly carinated. 

 Length about T^in. 



Adult female brown, pegtop-shaped, shrivelling at gesta- 

 tion. Abdomen somewhat acuminate, ending in six terminal 

 lobes, of which the two median are the largest, the outer pair 

 the smallest. Between the lobes are some small scaly hairs. 

 Margin slightly crenulated : two of the crenulations on each 

 side, just beyond the outer pair of lobes, bear longish feather- 

 shaped processes or scales, slender and pointed, one to each 

 crenulation. Four groups of spinnerets, of which the upper 

 laterals have 5-8 orifices, the lower pair 2-4. Several single 

 spinnerets. 



Adult male unknown. 



Hab. In Fiji. Mr. E. L. Holmes has sent me specimens 

 on some large smooth leaf ; but I do not know the plant. 



The female puparium of this species resembles somewhat, 

 to the naked eye, that of Aspidiotus coccineiis {aurantii), 

 although close inspection shows that it is less regularly cir- 

 cular. But the carinated male puparium fixes it in Diaspis. 

 The two pairs of feathery processes on the margin of the last 

 abdominal segment are quite distinct and characteristic. 



Genus Mytilaspis, Targioni-Tozzetti. 



I tliink it advisable here to enter somewhat into detail 

 as to my plan of including in the genus Mytilaspis a number 

 of insects which, in the outward appearance of the female 

 shield, do not present exactly the "mussel" shape of the 

 type, but rather resemble the broad scale of Chionaspis. 

 These insects, in my various papers, I have named M. epiphy- 

 tidis, M. leptospernii, M. inetrosideri, M. jiallcns, M. pihyma- 

 todidis, and ill. pyriformis, and in this paper M. intermedia. 



Professor Comstock, in the Second Report of the Department 

 of Entomology, Cornell University Experiment Station, 1883, 

 p. 97, states that the two genera Chionaspis and Mytilaspis 

 " can in almost all cases be distinguished by the colour of the 

 scale ; " and says that he knows of no species of Mytilaspis in 

 which the scale of either sex is white. In his " Introduction 

 to Entomology," 1888, p. 149, he, however, only gives as the 

 distinguishing mark of Mytilasjns " scale of male similar in 

 form to that of the female." I confess that, to me, colour 

 plays a very unimportant part in the matter. I look dn 

 colour as an accident not only of the organisms themselves, 

 but also of the observer's eyes. Men rarely, I think, agree 



