SCIENCE BULLETIN, No. 18. 



Genus XIII. Ceronema, Maskell. 



Trans. N. Zealand Inst., vol. xxvii, p. 55, 1894. 

 Cockerell, Canadian Entomologist, vol. xxxi, p. 330, 1899. 



This genus was formed by Maskell for an Australian coccid that is allied 

 to Pidvirvirla. He says : " Adult female covered wholly or partially by 

 tests of threads more or less closely woven, neither glassy, cottony or felted- 

 Never forming homogeneous plates, no fringe. Lecanid in form, with noimal 

 cleft and lobes. Male scale covered by a glassy test of normal Lecanid form, 

 comprised of plates more or less homogeneous." 



Cockerell supplements this in his " Tables for the determination of the 

 genera of Coccidae." Female secreting a thick mass of white waxy threads, 

 which, however, do not cover the middle of the back; round the sides are 

 threads spreading in all directions; antennae six-jointed, third much the 

 longest ; legs rather slender, tibise longer than tarsi. Two species have been 

 described from Australia ; another has been described from China and Japan 

 upon the tea plant, by Maskell ; and a fourth upon the tea plant in Ceylon. 

 I have another very handsome large species upon the foliage of eucalypts in 

 New South Wales. 



Ceronema banJcsice, Maskell (Figs. 1 and 2.) 

 Trans. N. Zealand Inst., vol. xxvii, p. 56, pi. iv, figs. 1-13, 1894. 

 This insect was found by me upon the leaves of Banksia serrata, the com- 

 mon " honeysuckle " of our coast, in the vicinity of Manly, N.S.W. It is a 

 rare scale, and I have only found it three or four times in all my collecting. 

 Fuller says that this species is found on three different species of Banksias 

 in Western Australia. 



The test or covering of the adult female is white, nearly one-third of an 

 inch in length, broadly rounded, oval, the outer margins consisting of fine 

 hairs resting on the surface of the leaf, with the rest forming two rolls of 

 white waxy threads, or rather strands, folding over on either side with a 

 parallel cleft down the centre like the jDarting in a man's hair, but biushed 

 round on either side. 



The adult female is therefore hidden, except down the centre of the ba ck ; 

 she is dark, reddish brown, about one-eighth of an inch in length, oval, 

 slightly convex, with the centre of the back smooth, but either side thickly 

 marked with oval pores, and the outer margin of the body fringed with fine 

 hairs. Furnished mth six-jointed antennae and small feet. The male 

 puparium is silvery white, slender elliptical, -ro inch in length, beautifully 

 striated, marked with a triangular plate at both extremities. 



630 Ceronema banksice. Cat. Coccidae, p. 127. 



