INJURIOUS TO THE LEBBEK TREES OF CAIKO. 127 



reached this stage appear as i£ they had been scorched by fire, but the 

 crowns of such trees do not become completely defoliated. Many of the 

 dead leaves and leaf-petioles are retained, and this in a very singular manner. 

 The surface of the ovisacs of the females is somewhat adhesive, and this 

 peculiarity is further increased by the honey-dew secretion. Dead leaflets, 

 leaf-petioles and dead flowers, themselves already perhaps made sticky by 

 the honey-dew, fall upon the mealy bug colonies and gradually accumulate 

 over and round them, forming small masses of debris. These masses of leaf 

 and other debris covering the colonies of the insects appear brown from 



Fig. 5. — Twigs from lebbek tree badly infested with the mealy bug. 



below, and are especially noticeable on and at the end of the twigs, giving to 

 the attacked trees the very characteristic appearance shown below (fig. 6). 

 These photographs should be compared with that of a healthy lebbek tree 



(fig.i). 



At the time when the mealy bug was most abundant, the treos were in full 

 flower, so that the colonies of the insects frequently became almost entirely 

 covered over by dead blossoms in the manner just described (fig. 7), reminding 

 one somewhat of the mossy or Bedeguar Galls found on rose-bushes, formed 

 by one of the CvNiPiDiE {lihodites rosce). 



