Maskell. — On Coccididac. 93 



to a truncate extremity, where there are two very small anal 

 tubercles, each bearing a very long seta. Later in the larval 

 stage the form becomes shorter, thicker, and more con- 

 spicuously segmented ; the antenna? are short and squat, and 

 their joints more confused ; the feet are a good deal thicker ; 

 the abdomexa is short, and the setae likewise. 



The male appears to undergo all its transformations in the 

 gall with the female. In the earliest stage it seems impossible 

 to detect the difference between the male and female larvae, 

 but later on this becomes apparent. I possess a specimen 

 which is evidently a male just entering upon the pupal stage. 

 The elongated larval form is still noticeable ; the antennae 

 and feet remain, and also the abdominal skin. But within, 

 the new pupal formation is quite noticeable, with a slender, 

 conical, segmented abdomen, and the beginnings of the future 

 elytra appearing on the thoracic margins. The male pvipa, 

 after emerging from the larval skin, forms a small white 

 cylindrical cottony sac ; and I have found several of these in 

 a gall with the adult female and larvae, and with nearly adult 

 males in them. 



The adult male is deep-red in colour, the wings slightly 

 iridescent. Length of the insect about ^V^^- The form of the 

 head and thorax offers nothing peculiar ; but the abdomen is 

 excessively elongated, the segments very long, narrow, and 

 tapering. The last segment is about half as long as any of 

 the others, and is wider and more elliptical ; it terminates in 

 the sheath of the penis, which, viewed dorsally, is cylindrical 

 and straight, but viewed sideways is curved in a double hook ; 

 this sheath is very short. . There are four short hairs on each 

 side of the base of the sheath, but no long setae. The antennae 

 have ten joints, all moderately long and subequal except the 

 first, which is short and tubercular. Feet moderately long 

 and slender. 



I have no doubt as to the affinities of this insect, which, 

 from the hairless anal ring, the absence of tubercles, feet, or 

 antennas, and from other characters, is clearly Idiococcid. In 

 establishing last year the genus Sj)hcerococcus I had no males 

 to guide me, and could give no generic characters for that sex. 

 I shall still hesitate to do so, for, although the male of S. 

 leptospermi and also that of S. froggalti (described below) 

 have excessively elongated abdominal segments, the male of 

 S. jnrogallis (below) does not exhibit so niarked a feature. It 

 may seem a simple thing to many people to establish generic 

 characters on points which they have observed in some single 

 species, or even some single specimen, which they have found. 

 I wish very much that this habit (pernicious enough, in all 

 conscience, amongst lepidopterists and coleopterists) could be 

 sternly repressed in the study of Coccids. In the present 



