9G [September, 1887, 



neath, is not well described as " ciliated," for the hairs or spines are atout and not 

 close together, and the " white tufts " on the surface are really waxen projecting 

 granulations. 



Curtis's description so well fits the insect I have before me, that 

 I cannot do better than adopt it, with the foregoing small addition. 

 His description was made, 43 years ago, from two examples on a leaf 

 of Brexia spinosa, a native of Madagascar ; the scale does not appear 

 to have been identified since, until that by the kindness of the 

 Director of the Royal G-ardens at Kew, I received thence, in February, 

 a specimen attached to a leaf of Brexia madagascariensis, and two 

 others full of yellow eggs on a shoot of Cratceva gynandra. The ^ 

 is unknown. 



Signoret, following Targioni-Tozzetti, thinks that L. testudo may 

 be the same as i. cycadis, Boisd., which I know only by a single scale 

 kindly given to me by Dr. Signoret, and which does not well agree 

 with my scales of L. testudo, but I am not in a position to judge by 

 one example. (Signoret gives the length of the scale of L. cycadis as 

 "about 5 centimetres," which is surely a misprint for 5 millimetres). 

 If there be but one species, Curtis's name is the older. I am not sure 

 of the number of the joints in the antennae of L. testudo, the concavity 

 of the reversed scale being so great that a good view of the antennse is 

 not to be had without the destruction of the scale, which I cannot 

 afford to effect. Signoret says nine joints in L. cycadis. The ^ of 

 L. cycadis is unknown. 



My specimens of L. testudo are all but identical with scales of L. 

 olecB, Bernh., which I received from Professor Comstock, the chief 

 apparent difference being that the white specks thereon are smaller 

 than on mine. Signoret says the male of L. olece was unknown to 

 him, although the female was common (Ess. Cochin., p. 271). Com- 

 stock states that although the ? was abundant on many trees in 

 California, the ^J was unknown. (Report for 1880, p. 336). L. olece 

 has but eight joints in the antennae. 



Whatever may be the result of future investigations, the foregoing 

 allusion to Lecanium cycadis, Boisd. (1867), gives opportunity to 

 mention that the species appears to have been previously indicated by 

 A. H. Haworth under the name of Coccus palmce, in the " Transactions 

 of the Entomological Society of London," vol. i, p. 307 (1812). The 

 identity is the more assured in that Haworth's species evidently be- 

 longs to Signoret's very restricted " Serie 5 " of Lecanium, of which 

 the leading character of the scale is " distinguished from all others by 

 the rugose surface and the dorsal disc presenting one longitudinal and 



