6o Indian Museum Notes. tVol. lY. 



For this pest, as also for the pest next mentioned, an emulsion of 

 soft soap and kerosene oil would probably be efficacious. 



4. Chionaspis prunicola, Mask var. thece. 

 (Sub-Order Homoptera, Fam. Coccid^.) 



In May last a number of blighted tea leaves were forwarded to 

 the Indian Museum by Mr. J. Lancaster, Secretary, Agricultural 

 and Horticultural Society of India. The leaves were found to be 

 covered with a number of little scale insects. Mr. Lancaster did 

 not state the locality of the insect, but reported that it comes on or 

 gets worse in the dry season, and was spreading and causing great 

 destruction in a tea garden. The pest proved to be new to the 

 Indian Museum Collection, so specimens were submitted to 

 Mr. W. M. Maskell for examination. Who wrote — 



" I am sorry that on this occasion I cannot as yet give you a 

 definite identification of this insect. It very clearly belongs to the 

 Diaspidinaey but I am a little puzzled by its affinities. It approaches 

 so very closely to Chionaspis prunicola, in almost every character, 

 that I am in much doubt. The only differences are that the adult 

 female is more elongated than C. prumcola, and the puparium of the 

 male is apparently not carinated. This latter character would, 

 indeed, // certain, relegate the insect to the genus Mytilaspis ; but 

 I am not quite sure about it. The elongation of the female is less 

 important. In the anatomical characters of the female pygidium the 

 two insects are almost, if not quite, identical. Under these circum- 

 stances, I am obliged to suspend my judgment. 



" Although Chion. prunicolaws^s found in the Sandwich Islands 

 on a Japanese plant, that is by no means any obstacle to its being 

 also in India : more especially as tea is not, I believe, indigenous in 

 India, and grows also in Japan. L have frequently avowed a dis- 

 belief in the theory that a Coccid is necessarily confined to one food 

 plant. Therefore, there is not the least reason on such grounds why 

 your insect should not be identical with that from the Sandwich 

 Islands. Still, there are slight differences, and I will not decide 

 positively at present." 



Mr. Maskell, however, after a further careful examination of the 

 specimens, subsequently wrote that he has decided to attach the 

 species to Chionaspis prunicola, under the name C. prunicola, 

 Mask, var., thece. 



