196 ANIMAL LIFE 
footless little sac without eyes or other organs of special 
sense, which lies motionless under a flat, thin, circular, red- 
dish scale composed of wax and two or three cast skins of 
the insect itself. The insect has a long, slender, flexible, 
sucking beak, which is thrust into the leaf or stem or fruit 
of the orange on which the “scale bug” lives and through 
which the insect sucks the orange sap, which is its only 
Fig. 124.—The red orange scale of California. a, bit of leaf with scales; 0, adult 
female; c, wax scale under which adult female lives; d, larva; e, adult male. 
food. It lays eggs under its body, and thus also under the 
protecting wax scale, and dies. From the eggs hatch active 
little larval scale-bugs with eyes and feelers and six legs. 
They crawl from under the wax scale and roam about over 
the orange tree. Finally, they settle down, thrusting their 
sucking beak into the plant tissues, and cast their skin. 
The females lose at this molt their legs and eyes and 
