[45] Report of the State Entomologist. 141 



The new insect is more of a yellow color shaded to dark orange at 

 the extremity, has six legs, two long feelers, and is provided with a 

 proboscis as long as its body, through which it draws its food. It is 

 one-half inch long; the body and head are on a curve, forming nearly 

 a half circle; the eyes quite large and dark, in a slender yellow 

 head. 



1:^ is a new thing to me to see one parasite thus destroying another, 

 but it may not be so to naturalists. 



The box contained the larval form of P. cristatus and several skins 

 apparently of the same species, which may have been the skins cast 

 off at the molting of the insect, or the dried remains from which the 

 juices had been sucked by individuals of its own species. 



That insect parasites and cannibals prey apon one another is no 

 new thing in science; it is simply in obedience to a common law in 

 nature. The cannibal propensity of the " devil's horse " (or as it is 

 perhaps more commonly named, the nine-pronged wheel-bug, from 

 the nine prominent teeth with which its thoracic crest is armed), in 

 both its larval and perfect states, has long been known. If several of 



lem are confined in a box, with no other food, they will invariably 

 destroy one another, by sucking out the juices, until only a single one 

 will be found remaining. 



The " new insect," above described, was probably a larva of the 

 P. cristatus, which, having passed through several moltings, differed 

 in appearance from the insect less advanced, upon which it was dis- 

 covered feeding. 



Pulvinaria innumerabilis (Eathvon). 



The Maple-tree Scale-insect. 



(Ord. HE:NnPTERA: Subord. Homoptera: Fam. Coccld^.) 



Coccus innumerahilis Rathvon: in Pennsylvania Farm Journal, iv. 

 August, 1854, pp. 256-258. 



The above-named scale-insect is one of the largest of its kind, and 

 is so conspicuous from the white, cottony mass that it secretes, that it 

 often comes under observation and arouses interest in its character 

 and habits. 



It is frequently found infesting grapevines, and to grape growers 

 it is known as the grapevine scale-insect; but it more often occurs on 

 the rtiaple, particularly the soft maple, Acer dasycarpum. To an 

 inquiry from Parkersburg, Va., under date of June eighteenth, for 

 information of the insect which was infesting, to an alarming extent, 

 the maple shade trees of the vicinity, tfie following reply, in sub- 

 stance, was made: , 



