184 INSECTA. 
epoch, however, soon arrives in which all these individuals expe- 
rience singular changes. They then become fixed; the male larvee 
for a determinate period, requisite for their ultimate metamorphosis, 
and the females for ever. It we observe the latter in the spring, we 
shall find that their body gradually increases to a great volume, and 
finally resembles a gall-nut, being sometimes spherical, and at others 
reniform or scaphoid. The skin of some is smooth and level, that of 
the remainder presents incisures or vestiges of segments. It is in 
this state that the females receive the embraces of their males, soon 
after which they produce a great number of eggs. They slip them 
between the skin of their venter, and a white down which covers the 
spot they occupy. Their body then becomes desiccated, and forms a 
solid crust or shell which covers their ova. Other females protect 
theirs by enveloping them with a white substance resembling cotton. 
Those which are spherical form a sort of box for them with their 
body. ‘The young Cocci have an oval body much flattened and fur- 
nished with the same organs as that of the mother. They spread 
themselves over the leaves, and towards the end of autumn approach 
the branches, on which they fix themselves to pass the winter. The 
females prepare to become mothers on the return of spring, and the 
males to transform themselves into chrysalides under their own 
skin. These chrysalides have their two anterior legs directed 
forwards, and not backwards like their remaining four, and the whole 
six in those of the other sex. Having acquired their wings, these 
males issue backwards from the posterior extremity of their domicil, 
and proceed immediately in search of their females. They are much 
smaller than the latter. Their copulating apparatus forms a recurved 
kind of tail between the two terminal sete of the abdomen. Reaumur 
saw two granules resembling simples eyes on that part of their head 
which corresponds to their mouth. TI have distinguished on the 
head of the male, C. udm, ten similar bodies, and two species of halteres 
on the thorax. Geoffroy says the females have four white threads at 
the posterior extremity of their abdomen, which are only visible by 
so pressing that part of the body as to make them protrude, 
Dorthez has observed a species on the Euphorbium characias 
which appears to differ in form and habits from the others. This in- 
duced his friend, the late M. Bosc, to convert that species into a 
genus which he named Dorthesia. The antenne consist of nine joints, 
those of the male being longer and more slender than in the female, 
The latter continues to live and run about after laying her eggs. The 
posterior extremity of the male’s abdomen is furnished with a tuft of 
white threads. ‘T'his insect is consequently more nearly allied to the 
Aphides than to the Cocci *. 
The Gallinsecta appear to injure trees by a superabundant sudo- 
resis through the punctures they make in them, and of course those 
who cultivate the Peach, Orange, Fig, and Olive, are particularly on 
their guard against them. Certain species fix themselves to the roots 
* M. Carcel, a zealous and learned entomologist, has lately confirmed these ob- 
servations by new investigations. See the Nouv. Dict, d’Hist. Nat., 2d edit., article 
Dorthés, 
Ne ee ee 
