200 
Foop-PLANTS, 
ORIGINAL Foop-pLant or IceryA Purcuasi.—There seems good 
reason to believe that this species is originally an Acacia insect, and 
that upon one or "eee of the plants of this genus it was imported 
from Australia into South Africa, California, and New Zealand. Aus- 
tralia is pre-eminently the home of the cacias, while none are indigenous 
to California, nor, so far as we can ascertain, to to New Zealand, and, as 
is well known, the a now found in these two countries have been 
introduced from Australia 
Professor McCoy, of Melbou wne, in his original communication to 
e government of Cape Colony, in 187 6, stated that the insect in question 
Shared i in Victoria on “ different kin cacia 
of the Coccidae found on the Kangaroo Island heats universalis d around 
Adelaide. This statement is so indefinite as to have little weight ; yet 
there is more than a possibibilty that the Australian insect mentioned is 
the Zcerya. 
Mr. Trimen, in his report previously mentioned, states that the first 
specimens seen by him in Cape Colony occurred in 1870, at Clairmont, 
on Blackwood trees (Acacia Mm obtained from the botanie 
gardens at Cape Town. He 
* [n the eourse of a few aake es insect. increased so peur 
in number, and the Australian Acacias became laden with them to 
an extent, that in the early part of 1874 the large Blackwood pean in 
the gardens, pes vds infested to a greater extent than any other 
plant, had to be cu 
In New sisse ee first appearance of this insect was also upon an 
Australian Acacia. Mr. Maskell, in originally describing the insect, in 
8, says: “ My specimens of this subdivision were found on a hedge 
« of the Kangaroo Acacia,f in Auckland, in March last. I understood 
* from Mr. Cheeseman and Dr. ioe who kindly brought this insect 
“under my notice, that it had only lately appeared in Au ckland, and 
* that it was only as yet to be found a that one hedge.” 
In California the experience was almost precisely similar. Mr. Stretch, 
in his paper before the Maii Academy of Sciences, in 1872, stated 
that at Menlo Park “it seemed to originate upon Acacia latifolia, a 
“ species imported ficos Australia.” Miss Anna Rosecrans, writing to 
the Pacific Rural Press of February 17, 1877, says: “It was first 
Dr. 
Chapin, i in the first report of the State Board of Morte Commis- 
sioners of California, 1882, says ; * This scale has been, it is asserted, 
* known to be on the Acacia for seven years in San José, but it is only 
during the past and present seasons that it has attracted attention ” 
(presumably by its spread to other cultivated plants). 
Thus we have much cumulative ery a that the species of the genus 
Acacia are the preferred food-plants of the Cotto ony Cushion-scale, and, 
esae Australia as its proper fum. they are probably its original 
LI 
pep tbe “ Australian Bug " of South Africa. Journal of Forestry, May, 1882, 
+> P. 44. 
T Acacia armata.—C. V. R, 
