CHAPTER V. 



OOCCI1OG: THE MEALY-BUGS. 



General Characters and Habits. Bark-lice, belonging to the subfamily 

 Cocciua3, cover themselves and their eggs with masses of downy wax 

 of white color, and hence they receive the name Mealy-bugs. Beneath 

 the flocculent covering the Bark-louse lies concealed, sometimes nest 

 ling beside a mass of eggs so large as to quite overshadow the insect 

 itself, sometimes surrounded by a crowd of young lice, whose succes- 

 sive generations in a short time cover the surface of an infested plant 

 with incrustations of dirty-white color resembling mildew. 



The Mealy-bugs retain their legs, antenna}, and other organs of the 

 larva, and to a great extent their freedom of motion throughout their 

 lives. 



As in the last subfamily, development in the female is very simple, 

 and there is but slight change of form from the larva to the adult. 

 The males of this group form a pupa, and develop into two winged 

 flies, like those of the armored scales, and while undergoing these 

 changes they encase themselves in little sacks of flocculent wax. 



Compared with other Coccids occurring on the Orange, the Mealy- 

 bugs are of large size. In destructiveness they rival any .of the pre 

 ceding species. They secrete and eject honey-dew, and this, falling 

 upon the leaves and upon the insects themselves, gives rise to the 

 black smut fungus (Capnodium citri). The incrustation formed by the 

 mealy bodies of the insects, befouled with smut, presents a very un- 

 sightly appearance, and trees smitten with these pests become con- 

 spicuous objects, visible at long distances. 



Food Plants. The Common Mealy-bug, Dactylopius adonidum (Linn.), 

 is a well-known pest of the garden and greenhouse, attacking nearly 

 all plants, even pines and evergreens, and undoubtedly including the 

 Orange and its kind, at least in the gardens of southern Europe. In 

 the United States, however, this species has not been known to infest 

 orange groves, but its place is supplied by a very closely related form, 

 which is considered by Professor Comstock a new species of the same 

 genus, and has been described by him under the name D. destructor. 

 The habits of this aid the following species, Icerya purcliasi Mask., are 

 similar, and, like the common garden insect, they attack, with disas- 

 trous results, almost all varieties of fruit and shade trees, as well as 

 shrubs and herbaceous plants of the most widely different sorts. 



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