310 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [July, ’o8 
seemed to have come with the purchase by the Bureau of Ento- 
mology, of the Department of Agriculture, of the entire Fitch 
collection, together with his original notes. The writer’s in- 
terest was very much aroused to find, included among the old 
moldy material, the identical specimen which Fitch had before 
him when he described Aspidiotus circularis, labeled in his own 
handwriting, and carrying his number and the date. It con- 
sisted of a single scale, removed from the wood and mounted 
on a bit of cardboard. The external appearance of this scale 
was exactly like that of ancylus. The pale yellow color as de- 
scribed by Fitch of the central spot or exuvium gives a rather 
wrong impression, for, in spite of the bleaching of more than 
fifty years, the exuvium still indicated a distinct orange colora- 
tion, and was really no more faded than specimens of ancylus 
in the Department collection dating from the time of Comstock, 
collected twenty-eight years ago. On softening the glue and 
lifting the scale, it was found that the insect itself was want- 
ing. An attempt was made to clear the exuvium, hoping by this 
means to get the second stage of ancylus, which is sufficiently 
characteristic. Unfortunately the insect had not reached the 
second stage, and the exuvium proved to be of the larval form 
and much mutilated, and while very possibly ancylus, there 
are not enough structural features left to definitely decide this 
point. Furthermore, it has not been possible to distinguish 
by larval structures the scale insects closely allied to ancylus. 
The evidence so far, however, seemed to point sufficiently 
distinctly to ancylus to justify the reduction of Putnam’s name 
to synonymy and giving Fitch the credit for the species. In 
the Fitch collection, however, were two other scale insects 
which had been given manuscript names only, and the descrip- 
tions never published. These were designated by Fitch as 
Aspidiotus mali, collected on apple, Albany, N. Y., May, 1855; 
and Aspidiotus patellaeformis, collected on Ulmus racemosa, 
May 14 of the same year, both lots preserved in situ on bits 
of bark. The first proved to be Aspidiotus forbesi Johnson, 
represented by four adult females, and the second, Aspidiotus 
ancylus Putn., represented by a single parasitized female of 
