118 



GENERAL NOTES. 



SYNONYMY OP THE MEALY BUG OF THE ORANGE. 



In 1880 Prof. J. H. Comstock described the coiniiiou Mealy Bug 

 found on Orange trees in Florida as Dactylopius destructor,* and by 

 this name it has since been generally known in this country. The same 

 vspecies is stated by Professor Comstock to be common in northern green- 

 houses upon a variety of plants. 



In the Florida Dispatch for June 25, 1888, Mr. W. H. Ash mead an- 

 nounces that I), destructor Comstock is synonymous with Lecanium 

 phyllococcus, described by him in the Canadian Entomologist for August 

 1879 (Vol. Xr, No. 8, p. 100), and that the species should therefore be 

 known as Dactylopius pki/lli>cocciis (Aslim.). 



There is little doubt, iiowever, that this species is identical with 

 the Coccus citri of Boisduval (see Boisduval, Entomologie Horticole, 

 1867, p. 348, fig. 48), as described at length by Signoret in the Ann. 

 Soc. Ent. France, 1875, page 312, and as figured upon Plate XIV, fig- 

 ures 2, 2*^, and 2^ of the same volume, under the name Dactylopius citri 

 (Boisd.). This conclusion is arrived at by Penzig in his Studi Botanici 

 sulle Agrumi e suUe Piante affini, Rome, 1887, p. 530, after a careful 

 comparison of Comstock's descriptions and fignres with the European 

 insect; and there is at present no reason why this conclusion should 

 not be adopted in this country. 



D. citri is said by Penzig to be one of the worst of the Orange ene. 

 mies in Italy, both from the damage caused b}' its punctures and from 

 the abundance of the smut fungi — Meliola and Gladosporiiim — by which 

 its attacks are followed. 



ENTOMOLOGY IN CHILI. 



Prof. Frederico Philippi lately favored us with copy of his ^'Catalogo 

 de los Coleopteros de Chile" (reprinted from the Auales de la Qniversi- 

 dad de Chile, Vol. LXXI, 1887). Since the publication of Vols. IV and 

 V (1841)-'51) of the " Historia fisica i politica de Chile " by Claudio Gay, 

 this is the first attempt at collating the Coleopterous fauna of that coun- 

 try. In Gay's "Historia" the Coleoptera known from Chili amounted 

 to 345 genera with 891 species, whereas Prof. Philippi is now able to 

 enumerate 686 genera with 2,247 species. This is undoubtedly a large 

 increase, but the whole number evidently represents only the smaller 

 portion of the Coleoptera actually occurring in Chili, which is so diver- 

 sified in regard to climatic and geological conditions. From the nature 

 of the conditions it is apparent that the Chilian fauna admits of but 

 little opportunity for comparison with the fauna of North America. 

 Still, in perusing Philippi's catalogue we find that it contains 30 species 



"Kept. Eiit., Aun. Kept. Dept. A<,'r., 18d0, p. 342. 



