ON AN APHIDIAN INSECT INFESTING PINE TREES. 291 
ON AN APHIDIAN INSECT INFESTING PINE TREES.* 
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BY W. M. MASKELL. 
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This “blight,” as it is commonly called, seems to have 
appeared in New Zealand some five or six years ago, and it is 
now common throughout the country from Weilington and Nel- 
son southwards, chiefly on Pinus insignis, P. halepensis, and P. 
sylvestris. In general appearance it exhibits a white cottony or 
mealy fluff, thickly coating the twigs, but not usually extending 
along the leaf-tufts. Gradually the trees begin to turn brown, 
soon appearing dry and scorched, and at last the whole tree 
seems to wither and present all the signs of complete decay and 
death. The brown leaf-tufts often remain in their places; but 
sometimes they fall off and leave only the naked brown twigs, 
and the tree becomes thus very unsightly and, seemingly, dead. 
Pines around Wellington are very much damaged by this 
“blight ;’ at Nelson it is the same; and accounts from Canter- 
bury and Otago speak of similar ravages in plantations there. 
Many people are, in consequence, thinking of altogether ceasing 
to plant pine trees at all. 
These injuries are caused by an insect of the family Aphidide, 
belonging to the genus commonly, but wrongly, named Chermes 
or Kermes. Its nearest allies are the European insects C. (Avis- 
ophleba) pint, Koch, and C. corticalis, Kaltenbach, which indeed 
may possibly be only one andthe same. There are a few minute 
characters, such as the absence of peduncles in the eggs, absence 
of spots on the dorsum, &c., which seem to differentiate it, but 
it is evidently very nearly related to the above insects. The 
damage which it causes to the pine trees is effected in the early 
stages of its life history, being the work of the young “embryonic” 
larva and of the apterous oviparous female. The winged state 
_ of the female and the winged male have not been observed ; but 
it is probable that they would closely resemble those of the 
European insects, though the winged forms of C. pzuz are also 
scarcely known. 
The apterous oviparous female may be seen with a lens, or 
with difficulty with the naked eye, resting amongst the white 
cottony fluff on the twigs, in which she lays her eggs. She is 
dark brown in colour, semi-globular, about 1-25th inch long, with 
a slug-like segmented body. The “cotton” is secreted through 
a number of circular spinneret orifices arranged in groups over 
the body. Apparently she lays sixty or seventy eggs, and the 
cotton is full of these and of young larve commencing their 
travels. ‘These larvee are active little beasts, but the oviparous 
* Abstract of paper read before Wellington Philosophical Society, August 6th, 
1884. 
