No. 6.] Scale Insects in Madras. 27 



//<?*.— Seven Pagodas, Madras. Name of the food-plant unknown, 

 but evidently a species of Panicum, or grass. The scales were frequent- 

 ly aggregated together behind the leaf-sheaths, and could only be seen 

 on removing the latter. 



THE "EGYPTIAN COTTONY CUSHION SCALE." 



Icerya ijegyptiacum, 



PI. II, fig. 3. 



Crossotosoma agyptiacum, Douglas. Eni M. M. S. S., Vol. I, p. 79. 



Icerya agyptmcum^ Riley. Insect Life, Vol. Ill, p. 97. 



Hitherto this most destructive pest was only known to occur at 

 Alexandria, Egypt, where it has for the last eight years caused the great- 

 est alarm. 



In a letter dated September 10th, 1893, Rear Admiral R. W. 

 Blomfield, R. N., writes of this pest as " an eleventh Egyptian plague, 

 which made its appearance at Alexandria in 1885, and has since proved 

 most destructive to all kinds of vegetation. Origin unknown.'' (In 

 lit.) 



It was unknown to naturalists until the year 1890 when Mr. 

 J. W. Douglas of Lewisham, England, described it for the first time as 

 Crossofosoma, N. 0., agi/piiacum, n. sp. (1. c). The specimens from 

 which Mr. Douglas made his descriptions, were " received from Mr. 

 D. Morris, Assistant Director of the Royal Gardens, Kew, to whom they 

 had been sent from Alexandria, Egypt, where they were causing im- 

 mense injury to fruit trees '^ (Doug. 1, c). 



Later Dr. C. V. Riley (I, c.) refers the species to the genus Icerya, 

 to which it undoubtedly belongs. Several other interesting accounts of 

 this pest are given by Dr. Riley in " Insect Life," and as they may not 

 be accessible to tiie general public, I venture to quote some of them. 

 At Vol. II, p. 256, is the first record, as follows :— " During the past four 

 years the gardens in Alexandria have been infested by a coccus which 



destroys all of the trees, and is causing the greatest alarm 



Admiral Blomfield^ noticed it in quantities on the under-side of the leaves 

 of the Banyan tree, but it soon spread with extraordinary rapidity, and 

 some of the most beautiful gardens of the city full of tropical trees and 

 shrubs have been also destroyed. A breeze sends the cottony pest down 

 in showers in all directions. It seems to attack almost any plant, but 

 the leaves of Ficus ruginosa and one or two other kinds of fig seem too 

 tough for it, and it will not touch them. He states that it seems 



' Spelt in error Bluntiold. 



