PBEEACE. 



CONSIDERING the destructive nature of many Coccids 

 found in the British Isles, it is remarkable to find that 

 in the past, comparatively little attention has been 

 paid to this important group of insects by the ento- 

 mologists of this country. Prior to 1881, Curtis and 

 Westwood were the only two authorities who con- 

 tributed anything of importance concerning these 

 insects, but they described very few species, and alto- 

 gether the work of the earlier writers is of a desultory 

 and intermittent character. 



In the ' Entomologist's Monthly Magazine,' at the 

 beginning of the year 1881, the veteran entomologist 

 Mr. J . "W. Douglas began a series of articles on British 

 and Exotic Coccidas, which he continued to publish for 

 several years, until sickness, unfortunately, compelled 

 him to retire. In his first paper* the author gives an 

 account of the species of the genus Orthezia, which 

 was followed laterf by a further contribution to the 

 same genus, accompanied by a plate of beautiful illus- 

 trations of the three indigenous species. In vol. xxii 

 of the first-named magazine he gives a list of twenty- 

 two species found in Britain, and enumerates five 

 others from Stephens' Catalogue of British Insects. 

 Of these, fourteen species are referred to the genus 

 Lecanium, but several of these have proved to be 



* Entomologist's Monthly Magazine, vol. xvii, pp. 171 176. 

 f Trans. Entomological Soc. Lond., 1884. Part I, pp. 8186, pi. ii, 

 figs. 17. 



