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Descriptions of South Australian 

 Braghysgelid Galls. 



By J. G. O. Tepper, F.L.8. 



[Read August 1, 1S93.] 



Plates III.-Y. 



The Brachyscelid^, a family of Coccids, appear to be entirely 

 endemic to Australia, only extending in an aberrant form to 

 New Zealand. At present the family is composed of a limited 

 number of genera, of which the typical one contains most of the 

 described species. The family with three of the genera was 

 established by Schrader in 1»62 on material collected in New 

 South Wales, several species being described and figured by him 

 in the " Transactions of the Entomological Society of New 

 South Wales," vol. L, pages 1-8. His descriptions are, how- 

 ever, unmethodical, and therefore unsatisfactory. 



Quite recently Mr. W. W. Froggatt published a further con- 

 tribution in the " Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New 

 South Wales," vol. YII., series 2, pp. 353-372, of which he 

 most courteously and obligingly sent me a separate copy. In 

 this he re-describes intelligently Schrader's species (5), and adds 

 eight new ones of BracJtyscelis, mostly illustrated by excellent 

 figures. 



Finding that these two papers constituted the whole literature 

 of the subject of Brachyscelid galls, and that the work contain- 

 ing Schrader's figures existed in the S.A. Public Library, I 

 comjDared those in the collection of the S.A. Museum (mostly 

 brought together by myself) carefully with the published descrij^- 

 tions and figures, and found that nearly all our S.A. species were 

 more or less widely different, and therefore new and undescribed, 

 and that even the few which might possibly be included in one 

 of the other species, were more or less aberrant in detail. Being 

 precluded by a Museum regulation from communicating specimens 

 of, or information on undescribed species to extra-South 

 Australian specialists, I have myself worked up the subject, and 

 present herewitli the results as a contri]>ution towards a more 

 complete work of the future. The illustrations have all been 

 drawn from the type specimens by myself, and represent them as 

 truthfully as possible. The species are all figured for the first 

 time. 



The Brachyscelid galls form undoubtedly some of the most 



