1889.] 405 



ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN LECANIDINM, SEMI-COCCIDINM 

 AND COCCIDINJE. 



BY W. M. MASKELL, F.K.M.S. 



Mr. Albert C. F. Morgan, in the number of tbe Ent. Mo. Mag. 

 for May, 1889, p. 275, ante, discusses adversely tbe distinction which, 

 in my "Scale Insects of New Zealand," I have drawn between such 

 genera as Lecanium, Kervnes, Dactylopius, and doubts the propriety of 

 my erecting a special group, to which I gave the name of " Heoni- 

 Coccidincd^ for the purpose of including only the three genera Kermes, 

 Pollinia and Aster olecaniurn. I am so far from deprecating controversy 

 on this or kindred matters that I welcome it as another of the signs 

 of the awakening interest of entomologists in the hitherto much 

 neglected family of Coccids ; and I have read also with great interest 

 Mr. Morgans's previous papers on the so-called " spinneret-groups " 

 of Diaspidce. 



I venture, before proceeding to the precise subject of Mr. Morgan's 

 paper of May, to say one word about my nomenclature of the various 

 groups into which I have divided Coccids — that is, my reason for 

 employing Diaspidincs for Diaspina, Ooecidince for Coccina, &c, 

 inserting, in fact, an extra syllable. I am quite open to correction if 

 I am wrong, but it did seem to me that a " group-name " should be at 

 the same time correctly expressive, that is, not liable to mislead, and 

 also as comprehensive as possible. Now, the name " Diaspina," to 

 most people, if it does not suggest something in connection with spines, 

 would, at least, not point at all to any inflection of the Greek 

 aspis, aspidos the real root, and the additional syllable "id" seemed 

 therefore necessary. Again, in the Lecanid group, a name was 

 required to include not only the purely Lecanium sub-division, but 

 also the genera with waxy coverings. Coccids proper, again, include 

 such different sections as JRhizococcus and Icerya. I venture, therefore, 

 to plead that thefe may be at least some method in my doings. 



Now, as to the Hemi-Coccidince. Mr. Morgan, at the outset, is 

 not quite accurate in stating that in my " Scale Insects of New Zealand," 

 published in 1887, 1 " introduced a new division or sub-family." If he 

 had noticed that, on page 87 of that work, I refer the reader to vol. 

 xvi of the " Transactions of the New Zealand Institute," he might 

 have looked at my paper in that volume (read in October, 1883, the 

 volume being published in May, 1884). He would therein have found 

 the new arrangement of groups, with a very full discussion of the 

 reasons which led me to make it. In point of fact, my book of 1887 

 is only, as far as the diagnosis of genera and species is concerned, a 



M M 



