62 Indian Economic Entomology . [ Yol, II 



Adult female dull brownish-yellow : at first elliptical, tapering some- 

 what posteriorly, convex, and filling the test : afterwards shrivelling up 

 towards the cephalic end o£ the test: length from -^-^ to ^^ inch. Epider- 

 mis rugose, as in the test. Abdomen ending in a rather wide cleft with 

 short broad lobes, each lobe bearing two short unequal setae. Anogenital 

 ring with very numerous hairs. Anteunse of seven sub-equal joints* 

 the last bearing a few short hairs. Feet slender, upper digitals long 

 and rather thick, lower pair very widely dilated at the ends : tibia longer, 

 but not much longer, than the tarsus. Edges of the body rather thick, 

 bearing a double row of conical spines, one row larger than the other. 

 Spiraeular spines very long. There are a good many tubular spinnerets 

 on the dorsum, mostly near the edges. 



Male pupa reddish-brown : length about Jg- inch. Four dorsal and 

 two ventral eyes can be made out, and two ocelli. 



Adult male unknown. 



Habitat. — On Cajanns indicus in Madras, ^ India. 



This insect is clearly Lecanid, from the abdominal cleft, the very 

 numerous hairs of the anogenital ring, and the seven- jointed antennse of 

 the adult. It exhibits characters closely allied to those of four described 

 genera. From Signoretia, Targioni, it differs in its much more closely 

 felted test and in the antennae, that European genus having antennae of 

 eight joints. Eriopeltis, Signoret, and Philippia, Targioni, have both 

 loose cottony sacs and antenna? of six joints. But the genus Eriochiton 

 in New Zealand differs only in \^q quantity of the excreted matter cover- 

 ing the adult female. In the New Zealand forms this is usually frag- 

 mentary or inconspicuous, being most easily seen in the second stage : 

 in the Indian insect it is thick and constant on the adult. But such a 

 character may fairly be considered as only trivial. There is indeed one 

 oint in which the new species differs from all the above : and that is 

 the length of the tibia, as compared with th.e tarsus, in the larva. But 

 this indeed is so abnormal tliat, if stress were laid on it, not only a new 

 genus, but a new group would have to be established to include the in- 

 sect : because it is probal)ly an invariable mark of the larval stage in 

 any other coccid that the tarsus is longer than the tibia. Setting, then, 

 this aside, there seems to be no genus to which this insect can be so 

 well ascribed as Eriochiton, and it has therefore been here so placed. 



^ The specimens were furnished, in Jannnry 1890, V)y the Assistant Director of Land 

 Records and Agriculture, Madras, as destructive to the plaut Cajanus indicus. 



