142 



Forty-third Report on the State Museum. 



[46] 



The Scale. 

 The specimens sent, attached irregularly to the lower surface of 



maple leaves, about twenty on each, are white, cottony masses of from 

 three to nearly four-tenths of an inch long, about 

 one-half as broad, of a suboval form, bearing upon 

 the narrower end a scale, somewhat flattened down, 

 which is darker marginally, oval, broader posteriorly, 

 where it is excavated and apparently cleft for a short 

 distance on the median line; in front is a medial 

 carina for about one-fourth or one-third the length, 

 some granulations on- each side, usually five trans- 

 verse wrinkles or folds and about the same num- 

 ber of raised lines running outwardly on each side 

 to the hinder margin. 



The white cotton-like mass which in the later 

 stage of the female existence, is so conspicuous 

 a feature of it, is a secretion thrown out for 

 the protection of its eggs, and the newly-hatched 

 insects. 



This insect belongs to the Coccidce, or as more 

 commonly known, scale-insects. Its common name, 

 drawn from the tree ujoon which it more frequently 



occurs, is the maple-tree scale-insect. 



Fig. 20. — The 

 maple-tree scale- 

 insect, PULVINAEIA 

 INNUMEKABILIS. 



History. 

 The species was first described by Dr. Rathvon, of Lancaster, Pa., 

 in the year 1854, who found it occurring" in such countless millions" 

 upon some linden trees, that he gave it the name of Coccus innumera- 

 bilis. A few months thereafter (in 1855) Dr. Fitch received examples 

 of it from an osage orange hedge in Ohio, and deeming it identical 

 with a fig-tree Lecanium of Europe, the L. caricce of Fabricius, he 

 simply described and figured it, with the remark that if it should 

 prove to be a new species, it might be known as Lecanium macluroe — 

 the specific name (suggested by Mr. Kennicott, from whom the 

 examples came), taken from the plant on which it occurred.* In the 

 year 1860, the species again came under the notice of Dr. Fitch, as 

 infesting maples at Albany and vicinity, and not recognizing it as the 

 osage orange insect, he proposed for it the name of Lecanium acericor- 

 ticis. In 1868 it was received by Messrs. Walsh and Riley as infest- 

 ing maples and also as occurring on osage orange, and was described 



*See summary of Dr. Fitch's paper on this insect in First Report on the Insects ofN. T. 

 1882, p. 301. 



