INSECTS INJURIOUS TO CITRUS FRUITS 



607 



under this head. The mealy-bug is common in all citrus growing 

 regions and is at times a serious pest. 



It attacks many plants, but prefers the citrus fruits. It is 

 found on all the growing parts of the plants, but prefers sheltered 

 situations as between the leaf -stem and the stem. It also gets into 

 crevices in the bark and sometimes clusters on the stem end of the 

 fruits and between fruits which are hanging against each other. 



FIG. 531. A group of common mealy-bugs. Enlarged about 9 times. 

 After Woglum and Neuls, U. S. Dept. of Agr. 



Mealy-bugs secrete a form of honey dew in which grows a black 

 sooty-mold of fungus which disfigures the fruit and renders wash- 

 ing, with its objectionable features, necessary. If not washed off 

 the fruit they will remain on it after picking and continue to breed 

 causing loss in transit or storage. 



The eggs are laid in a mass of cottony wax secreted by the 

 females and the young are fairly active. The adults are never 

 permanently attached to their food-plant as are the scales. They 

 breed more or less continuously but there are several generations. 



