Flowers home by an African Homopterous Insect. 697 



one — was that which was most convenient in position, 

 about four feet from the ground. The long wax filaments 

 so easily break that it was impossible to obtain satisfactory 

 results by painting the captured larvse. 



The drawing of the imagines was made Jan. 23, 1901, 

 at Kitui Station, from a branch of a bush which was 

 covered with groups and singje insects, although in both 

 larvse and imagines these latter are rare as compared with 

 groups. The bush, which was small, was about fifteen feet 

 high and ten feet in diameter. 



When disturbed the imagines fly and the larvse hop a 

 short distance in any direction, but they soon begin to 

 collect in groups again : the larvse will have reformed into 

 small groups in half-an-hour. The larvae are often seen 

 on rotten wood and dead leaves, but this is probably after 

 they have been disturbed. Frequently too, I have seen 

 the waxy secretion left adhering to branches where they 

 have been. The larvse seem to prefer a moist atmosphere 

 and shade, although I have seen them in the broadest 

 sunshine at Kibwezi, the locality where the insects were 

 seen by Professor Gregory. The imagines I have observed 

 in numbers on three or four occasions and in single groups 

 several times. The groups of larvse are usually about three 

 or four inches in length, but I have seen a group as much 

 as two feet long. 



The larvse towards the growing end of a branch are the 

 smallest of the group (see Plate XXVII), and Professor 

 Poulton suggests that this observation may perhaps 

 reconcile Professor Gregory's account with ours. Professor 

 Gregory, indeed, considers that the eggs of the Flata are 

 laid from below upwards so that the insects towards the 

 top of the stem would be the younger, and he thinks 

 possibly immature {loc. cit., p. 275). But the difference in 

 colour cannot be due to immaturity, for we have found old, 

 worn specimens of the green form. The first to emerge of 

 any group may, however, be green, and those that emerge 

 later red ; and Professor Gregory may have come across 

 undisturbed groups which therefore were green above and 

 red below. Our groups, on the other hand, may have 

 reassembled, and thus have lost the arrangement which it 

 is possible they may have possessed on emergence from 

 the pupal state. Specimens of larvse and imagines 

 captured at the time when the sketches- were made were 

 sent by us to the Hope Collection at Oxford. 



