26 Indian Museum Notes. [Vol. IV. 



Mr. Green writes in May 1894 :— 

 "I have just received No. 3, Volume III, of your 'Indian Museum Notes,' 

 containing a description of the Ceylon Coccid named by Mr. G. B. Buckton 

 Orthezia nacrea. Owing to the imperfect state of the specimens received by Mr. 

 Buckton, one or two inaccuracies occur in his description, which it would be as 

 well to correct. 



" But first I must state my conviction (in which Mr. Maskel! of New Zealand 

 concurs) that the insect in question is really identical with Orthezia insignis, 

 Dougl. (Ent. Month. Magazine, January 1888). 1 have specimens of Orthezia^ 

 insignis ivom England, and I can find no good points of distinction. The mar- 

 supiura or ovisac is rather shorter than in our Ceylon insect, but that is of no 

 importance specifically. The arrangement of the waxy appendages is identical 

 in both forms. 



" Mr. Buckton, from the examination of dead and dried specimens of the 

 Ceylon insect, gives the colour of head and thorax as pale warm brown. The 

 English insect is said by Mr. Douglas to be piceous black. The living insect in 

 Ceylon is always dull olive-green. The most serious discrepancy in Mr. 

 Buckton's description is in the proportion of the antennal joints. Mr. Buckto" 

 states, and shows in his figure, that the antennal joints gradually decrease in size 

 to the tip. In all the specimens that I have examined I have found the terminal 

 (8th) joint to equal or even exceed the previous three together. Mr. Buckton states 

 that the Kew (English) insect is much larger than the Ceylon form. Mr. Douglas 

 gives one mm. equal to 4 hundredths of an inch. My Ceylon specimens show a 

 length of 5 to 6 hundredths (without ovisac or appendages), so that what 

 difference there is appears to be in the opposite direction, 



" Nor can I find the slightest difference in the arrangement of the thoracic 

 laminae. 



" There is also rather an important error in Mr. Buckton's account of the 

 reproduction of the insect. He states that ',* twenty or thirty black eggs hatch 

 within the dead body of the parent, and find therein a secure covering until they 

 are sufficiently grown to migrate over the food plant.' 



" As a matter of fact there appears to be a constant passage of eggs and 

 young insects through the marsupium during the life of the parent. On opening 

 the ovisac of a living female one finds, next the insect, the newly-deposited eggs, 

 which are white. During their passage through the marsupium, packed in woolly 

 secretion, they gradually become darker, first yellow, then orange, then pale green, 

 and finally dark olive-green when the contained larva is ready to emerge. The 

 extremity of the ovisac usually contains the young active larvse, which soon find 

 their way through the breach formed by the first comers. 



" In apologising to Mr. Buckton for presuming to correct his" description, I 

 must excuse myself on the plea that I have had ample opportunity of examining 

 the living insect in all its stages, except the male, which I have been unable to 

 find." 



Specimens of the Rice Hispa {Hispa ^nescens, Baly), which 



Hispa (znescens, Baly. ^^s been referred to on page 37 of Volume I 



of these Notes as being very destructive to 



young paddy plants, have been forwarded to the Museum in August 



