160 MB. E. P. STEBBING ON THE 



storm, such as are usually experienced at that season, would 

 at once dissolve the sticky excretion covering the branches and 

 remove all evidence of the preceding moults, and thus tlie state 

 of affairs in progress would not be so clearly decipherable as it 

 was in the year in question. The forests were a truly re- 

 markable sight about the middle of April. Larvse, pupse, and 

 adults of the Vedalia were everywhere : the former running 

 agilely over the trees in quest of their prey; the pupse being 

 collected in numbers on leaves and twigs, more especially 

 perhaps on the former ; whilst the large leaves of the trees were 

 weighed down by the red masses of the beetles clinging to their 

 under surfaces during the heat of the day, as these latter only 

 feed in the early morning and evening. On every side also were 

 dried shrivelled skins of the sucked-out scales, gummed to the 

 branches or bark of the trees, stuck in the interstices of the bark 

 of the latter, or littering the ground amongst the dead leaves, &c. 

 Away aloft the crowns of the great Sal-trees appeared to have 

 their extremities encrusted with snow from the numbers of the 

 scales clinging to and feeding on the sap of their twigs and 

 smaller branches, and this incrustation was repeated on the 

 branches of the smaller trees and saplings, whilst the crawling 

 coccids invaded every corner of one's tent and covered the 

 leaf -littered ground without. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES. 



Plate 16. 



Monophlehus Stebbingi, Green. 

 Fig. 1. Eggs. 



2. Young 5 scale-insect, dorsal view. 



3. Side view of J" pupal ease. 



4. Ventral view of c? pupal case. 



5. Full-grown 5 scale, dorsal view. 



6. „ „ side view. 



7. Winged cJ insect. 



8. Cast skin of immature J , dorsal view. 



9. ,, ,, ventral view. 



10. Immature § feeding upon a young Sal-twig. 



11. Cast skins of immature § attached by the sugarv secretion to a 



Sal-branch. 



12. Ventral view of 5 with cottony egg-sac and eggs. 



13. Dorsal view of § with cottony egg-sac. 



