COLLECTING AND PRESERVING COCCID^. 43 



dopterists, envelopes, rubber bands, pins, shallow card- 

 board boxes, pencil, and a Coddington or other good 

 pocket lens. 



With such an outfit as the foregoing the collector 

 may consider himself well equipped. One could do 

 with less ; but for a serious day's collecting all the 

 articles enumerated will be found indispensable. The 

 pocket knife will be needed for removing strips of 

 bark ; and the pruning shears, which may be attached 

 to the buttonhole of one's coat, will be found a capital 

 tool for removing small branches without damaging or 

 jerking off the insects, which frequently happens when 

 the knife is used. The tubes will be found useful for 

 storing delicate and rare examples of the male scales 

 (puparia), etc. As large quantities of specimens are 

 generally required, the food-plant should be cut into 

 suitable lengths, placed in an envelope or cardboard 

 box, secured with a rubber band, and transferred to 

 the vasculum. The corked zinc box will be found 

 indispensable for pinning down slips of bark, etc., 

 having specimens with delicate ovisacs attached. 

 Unless the collector happens to be a good botanist, a 

 leaf, flower, or fruit, or if small the whole plant, should 

 be brought away for identification, as it is most essen- 

 tial the name of the food-plant should in all cases be 

 identified and recorded. On reaching home the speci- 

 mens should be removed at once from the glass tubes 

 and metal cases, or in a very short time they will become 

 mouldy and utterly unfit for study or preservation. 



The trees most productive of scale insects are those 

 growing in open spaces, and on the outskirts of woods 

 and forests ; parks and meadows ; sheltered hedgerows, 

 etc. ; grass on hill-sides, moors, and sunny spots 

 along hedgerows. The wood-rush (Luzula campestris) 

 in warm damp situations harbours Signoretia luzulse. 

 The three indigenous species of Orthezla are found 

 amongst moss, or at the roots of heather (Ericaceae), 

 on moors and in woods. The subterranean species 

 should be looked for among grass roots in warm dry 



