KEEMES QTJERCUS. 145 



insects seem to prefer the south-east side, though a 

 few specimens are on the opposite side. 



" I have only been able to find one male, and that 

 disappeared on the way home." 



The material sent to me consisted for the most part 

 of old, dead females, containing the effete skins of 

 the ova; but a careful examination of the crevices 

 of the bark revealed three immature females enveloped 

 in wax and woolly filaments ; and there were also two 

 empty male pup aria attached to a small fragment of 

 bark (fig. 2), from one of which the male referred to 

 by Mr. Burkill probably emerged, and subsequently 

 escaped from his collecting box. On 15th July, in the 

 same year, Mr. Brockton Tomlin found the species in 

 great numbers at Sherwood Forest, and from a freshly 

 fallen tree obtained a fine series of females in situ 

 (fig. 1). These examples contained living larvae, 

 which continued to hatch for a week or more after 

 they came into my possession. Wishing to establish 

 the species in my garden, I fastened a piece of the 

 bark, tenanted by about a dozen females, to a young 

 oak ; on visiting the tree four days later I found that 

 every example had been taken, and not a fragment of 

 the old skins had been left. To the best of my knowledge 

 there were no titmice (Paridae) about my garden at the 

 time, and I can only surmise that the coccids were 

 either eaten or destroyed by sparrows. 



Habits. From the somewhat scanty material sup- 

 plied to me it is impossible to trace out the complete 

 life-history of this interesting species, but I gather that 

 the larvae hatch about the middle of June, when they fix 

 themselves in the deep crevices of the bark of the oak; 

 one moult evidently takes place before winter, but the 

 females hibernate in a very young stage. The males 

 appear in June while the females are still very small, 

 and a month later the females produce larvae. Thus 

 the period between fecundation and parturition appears 

 to be abnormally short, and further investigation will 

 therefore be necessary to verify this statement. 



VOL. II. 10 



