228 



FOREST ENTOMOLOGY. 



and antennas paler and dusky. Eyes and ocelli black, shining, and 

 of the latter there are four dorsal and six ventral. Caudal filaments 

 comparatively short. Halteres pale red, turned back over the thorax 

 when the insect is at rest. Wings rather short, and suddenly widened 

 at base. Stylus nearly as long as the abdomen." 



I have found this insect sparsely distributed on all the food-plants 

 enumerated. As a veritable pest, however, I have found portions of 

 hedges near the city of Chester, and also in other parts of mid- 

 Cheshire, killed outright by this insect. It is also somewhat remark- 

 able that I 'always found this scale most injurious where the hedges 

 were either cut twice in one season or on cottage-garden hedges cut 

 only once in a season, and more especially where the cutting was done 

 very early in the autumn. 



Genus Physokermes. 



The larvae and early stages are quite identical with Lecanium. 

 After this, however, the structural details differ from Lecanium, in- 

 asmuch as in Physokermes the body at egg-deposition is composed 



of two chambers, both of 

 which are filled with eggs; 

 and also in the adult scale 

 no traces of antennas or 

 legs are found. 



Physokermes abietis 

 (Geoffrey). 



This insect is always 

 found on spruce (Abies 

 excelsa). The scale is 

 very much like a Lecan- 

 ium in general appear- 

 ance. It may be looked 

 for on the younger twigs of spruce, and more especially in the 

 "forkings" of the young twigs (fig. 215). The colour, generally 

 a dull chestnut, harmonises well with the food-plant, which may be a 

 means of protection against natural enemies. jSTewstead says he has 

 hatched from this scale a chalcid parasite, Encyrtus scaurus, Walk. ; a 



Fig. 215. Scales 0/ Physokermes abietis as found in the 

 "forkings" of the young twigs of common spruce. 



