2_0g [December, 1887. 



At the end of April Mr. G. C. Bignell, Stonehouse, Devon, sent 

 me some leaves of ivy {Sedera helix) from plants growing against an 

 adjacent garden wall, on the under-side of each of which were many 

 (sometimes a dozen) scales, evidently of a Lecanid, much resembling 

 those of Lecanium hesperidum in the young state ; they appeared to 

 be fixed, but I soon found that they moved about, and were in the 

 larva condition. I despaired of rearing them on the detached leaves, 

 and put them on ivy growing in the garden, but they did not take to 

 the leaves, and perished. 



At the end of May and on June 6th Mr. Bignell sent a further 

 supply of ivy leaves with scales attached ; nearly all of them were 

 those of males, but the majority were empty, the perfect insect having 

 emerged, but I was pleased to obtain seven or eight of the imago 

 within a few days. 



There were also some six or seven adult female scales, as described 

 above. Up to this time everything pointed to the species being a 

 Lecanium, but I had seen on two of the leaves small cottony masses 

 which might have formed part of the ovisac of a Pulvinaria, and I 

 thus suspected that the insects before me might possibly be of that 

 genus. I was, however, surprised on June 7th to find that two of 

 them had within a few hours completely covered themselves with a 

 thin white pellicle thinly overlaid wath cotton-like material, closer 

 and more flocky on the sides towards the margin, but no visible ovisac. 

 I then found that on account of this peculiarity of a species dis- 

 covered by M. Lichtenstein at Montpellier on leaves of laurustinus 

 (Vihurnum tinus) being discordant with the genus Pulvinaria (which 

 has only an inferior and posterior ovisac), and also with PMlHppia 

 (which makes an entire sac-envelope for itself, and of which the an- 

 tennae of the female have only six joints), Signoret (I. c.) had consti- 

 tuted for it the genus Lichtensia, thus characterized : — 



" $ flattened, having eight joints in the antennae, and having, at the adult stage 

 of life, after fecundation, a cottony pellicle which completely covers her, except at 

 the part where she is fixed to the plant, the eggs laid in a cottony mass." 



The species I now have, evidently of this genus, does not differ 

 from Signoret's description of L. vihurni, except in some small points ; 

 thus he does not mention the faint brown marking of the scale of the 

 $ , and he gives the 7th joint of the antennae as the shortest, which I 

 do not perceive, he also says there is a nebulosity along the radial 

 nerve in the wings of the male, while mine has a roseate hue there, 

 but I do not think that, in view of the close agreement in the majority 

 of characters, these small differences are sufficient to constitute a 



