222 JOURNAL OF THE TRINIDAD 



" 4 being the shortest. The tarsi are a little more than half the 

 "length of the tibia? and the digitules aie as in. the preceding 

 " species ; claws strong." 



"Male. — Length 0.87 mm. expanse of wings, 2 - 5 mm., color 

 "light olive brown, lighter than in following species; legs 

 " concolorous with body, antenna- reddish; eyes dark led ; bands 

 " darker brown than the general color ; anterior edge of 

 "mesoscutum and posterior edge of scutellum darker brown. 

 " Body, as will be seen from measurements, rather small and 

 "delicate compared with size of the wings; head small, with 

 "almost no hair ; antenna; 10 jointed, joints 3 and 10 longest 

 " and equal; joints 2, 6, 7, 8, and 9 nearly equal and considerably 

 " shorter than Sand 10, joints 3 and 4 sub-equal and a trifle 

 " shorter than the following joints. The lateral ocelli an; each 

 "just laterad of the centre of the eye, and not at its posterior 

 " border, as in the following species (this however, is a character 

 " which will not hold with specimens long mounted). Prothorax 

 " short; legs sparsely covered with hairs, tarsal digitules extremely 

 "delicate, and the button is very difficult to distinguish; we 

 " have been unable to discover a trace of the hair belonging to 

 " the claw. The anal filaments and the supporting hairs are 

 " similar to those of the following species. 



" This species is readily distinguished from D. longifilis by 

 "the shortness of the lateral and anal filaments in the female. 

 " Indeed, for convenience's sake, we have been in the habit of 

 "distinguishing them as the mealy bug, with short threads and 

 " and the one with long. The life history of this species differs 

 "quite decidedly from that of D. longifilis. in that true eggs, 

 "which occupy quite a long time in hatching, are deposited. 

 " The female begins laying her eggs in a cottony mass at the 

 " extremity of her abdomen, some time before attaining full 

 "growth and the egg mass increases with her own increase, 

 "gradually forcing the posterior end of the body upwards until 

 " she frequently seems to be almost standing on her head. The. 

 " young larva? soon after hatching spread in all directions and 

 "settle — preferably along the mid rib on the under side of the 

 'leaves or in the forks of the young twigs, where they form 

 "large colonies closely packed together, as mentioned in the 

 "description; they are only slightly covered with the white 

 "powder, and many seem to be entirely bare with the exception 

 " of the lateral threads. 



" Habitat. This species is very abundant upon almost 

 " every variety of house plant in the Department green houses, 

 " but especially so upon the Arabian and Liberian cofiee plants. 

 "On these plants they were found curiously enough, in small pits 

 "or glands on the under side of the leaf, along the mid rib almost 

 " every pit, of which there is one at the origin of each main vein, 



