18S7.] 23 



be said of many other so-called genera ; the term "genus " being an 

 abstract ideality to express certain forms or conditions of variation ; 

 but while such a group or individual, by its or their segregation, may 

 sometimes serve the purpose of classification, science is always en- 

 cumbered with the names. 



In the month of February I received from the Royal Gardens at 

 Ivew some pieces of the bark of Gycas revoluta with some of these 

 scales attached, all more or less covered by and involved in the fine 

 short brown fibre which is natural to the plant, and wticli frequently 

 interferes with the development in regular form of the $ scale. 



DiASPIS EOS^. 

 Aspidiotus rosce, Bouch^, Naturgesch. d. schadl. und niitzl. Q-arten-Insecten, p. 53, 



2 (1833) ; id., Naturgesch. der Insecten; p. 14, 2, pi. i, fig. 6 (1834) ; Burm., 



Handb., ii, 68, 2 (1835). 

 Biaspis roses, Sign., Ess. Cochin., p. 123, pi. v, fig. 3 & 3a ; Maskell, Trans. N. Z, 



Inst., xi, p. 201, pi. vi, fig. 9 (1878) ; Comstock, Eeport for 1880, p. 312, pi. v, 



fig. 1, la, & lb ; pi. xvii, fig. 1 ; pi. xxi, fig. 5 ; Q-oethe, Jahrb. d. nassau. Ver. 



f. Naturk., 1884, p. 116, T. 1, fig. 7, 8, 10. 



$ scale rounded-oval, nearly circular, white, the yellowish larval exuviae towards 

 one side. Diam., 2 — 3 mm. 



? adult elongate, anteriorly broad, red, posteriorly yellow, segments distinct, 

 each with spinose plates at the sides, on the last are five groups of spinnerets nearly 

 or quite connected, especially the laterals, anterior with 20, anterior and posterior 

 laterals with 25 — 30 each, besides some isolated spinnerets ; margin with two oblique 

 median lobes, narrowly separated at base, two others on each side deeply incised, 

 thence, up to the preceding segment, five or six spines. 



(J scale very small, narrow, tricarinate. Length, 1 mm. 



g imago orange-red, wings white, antennae and legs yellowish, slightly pubescent. 



As the author of the original name of this species, Aspidiotus 

 rosce, Signoret (Ess. Cochin., p. 67) gives Sandberg (1784), and in this 

 he has been followed by other writers, but both the generic and specific 

 names were first given by Bouche (I. c), Sandberg having referred to 

 the insect only as the " Schildlause des Rosenstrauches."* His article 

 on its natural history, considering the time at which it was written, is 

 full and precise, and has some graphic touches, as, for instance, where 

 he says the insect being one of the smallest (requiring a magnifying 

 glass in order to observe it), yet the $ has, in proportion, an enormous 

 scale (ungeheuer Schild). The history ends moralizing, thus : "This 

 is the biography of a creature whose world consists of two inches of 

 a little branch of a rose-bush, and it accomplishes what most men do : 

 werden, vermehren sich und — sterbeu." 



* Naturgeschichte der Schildlause des Rosenstrauches ; von K. v. Sandberg ; in Abhandlungcn 

 eines Privatgesells. Boehmen, vi, .317 (1784). 



