^6 Indian Museum Notes. [Vol. IV. 



Adult female, light dull-yellow in colour, feet and antennae some- 

 what darker. Length 4 mm. to 5 mm. Form elongated, elliptical, 

 tapering slightly posteriorly, distinctly segmented. Margin bear- 

 ing at each side about seventeen cottony tassels which are rather long 

 at the sides and the two last on each side very long, equalling, if not 

 surpassing, the length of the whole body. Dorsum sparsely covered 

 with white meal. Antennae of eight joints; the eighth the longest, 

 then the third, then the second, then the fifth : the fourth, sixth and 

 seventh the shortest and sub-equaL Torsal digitules slender, with 

 very small knob, digitules of the claw short and thick. Epidermis 

 at margins bearing many tubercular spinnerets and some conical 

 spines. Anal ring with six hairs. 



Larva similar in colour to the adult. Antennae of six joints, all 

 sub-equal except the sixth, which is as long as any three others. 



Adult male light olive-brown, length about one mm. Antennae of 

 ten slender joints. Feet hairy. Anal lobes bearing two long setJe 

 which carry long " tails " of white cotton. 



Habitat. — On many greenhouse and hothouse plants in North 

 America, principally upon Crotons and Ferns, 



It has been found also out-of-doors in Australia and is evidently 

 a tropical or sub-tropical form. 



This species is very closely allied to the common European (and 

 practically cosmopolitan nowadays) *^ mealy-bug" — Dactylopius 

 adonidum (Linn.) Signoret. Indeed, the characters separating 

 D, adonidum from several others of the genus are only very minute 

 and not altogether as yet thoroughly worked out. 



This coccid is noticed at full length, not because it has hitherto, 

 so far as is known, done any damage to agriculture, but because it 

 belongs to a destructive family and may possibly therefore extend 

 its ravages to useful plants, and because it is new to the Indian 

 Museum. 



v.— PESTS OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 

 Tick infesting fowls 

 Arf/as reflexiiSi Fabr. 



Plate VI, fig. 3. 



On the 14th April 1895 numerous living specimens of a tick were 

 forwarded to the Indian Museum by Mr. H. M. Phipson with the 



