150 liR. E. p. STEBBINO ON THE 



ableness or otherwise of the year to insect life. Before the 

 eggs are actually extruded from the body of the female, the 

 posterior ventral segments are seen to be developing a white 

 woolly hair. This increases in amount, especially towards the 

 anal extremity, and this white woolly mass serves as a second 

 covering for the eggs. At first this white cottony material is 

 quite short and, looked at from the dorsal aspect of the insect, 

 it is seen to project only a little way beyond the tip of the 

 abdomen. It, however, rapidly increases in amount until the 

 insect appears to have a small wad or ball of pulled-out cotton- 

 wool attached to its abdominal segments, protruding all round 

 from the ventral surfaces of the three posterior segments. 

 A closer examination of this cottony mass w^ill show that it really 

 surrounds a fine cotton sac which encloses the eggs (PI. 16. 

 figs. 12 & 13). Countings I have made of these latter show 

 that a female lays between 400 and 450 eggs. The greatest 

 number counted in a sac was 478. Before actually extruding the 

 sac from the body, the scale leaves the upper part of the tree 

 and searches out some nook or cranny beneath the rough bark, 

 or a sheltered spot beneath stones, refuse wood, &c., and con- 

 ceals herself. After the eggs in the cottony sac have been 

 extruded from the body, little but the skin remains, the insect 

 dies, and the dead shrivelled skin remains as a partial covering 

 to the eggs. Egg-laying would appear to last from a fortnight 

 to three weeks, after which both the male and female insects 

 disappear from the forest. I have noted that the eggs at times 

 are not deposited in particularly sheltered places, and there can 

 be little doubt, I think, that they get blown about a good deal by 

 the wind, and carried about by hairy spiders, large lizards, the 

 feathers of birds, and in the hair of mammals such as deer, 

 rodents, &c. 



There are one or two remarkable features resulting from the 

 presence of this insect in large numbers in a forest. One is the 

 enormous exudations secreted by the insects. They appear to 

 be little more than siphons, and their excretions cover the 

 branches and trunks of the trees and undergrowth and stones, 

 leaves, &c, upon the ground beneath with a coating of a sticky 

 nature, which dries like varnish in the sun. So great is the 

 amount of sap taken from the trees, that in the silence of the 

 forest these exudations can be heard dropping from the tall trees 

 like raindrops after a smart shower. Oue's- clothes and exposed 



