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species is quite generally known as the Black Scale, still this term is 

 an evident misnomer, at least as far as some specimens of this scale are 

 concerned. On the 16th of April, 1890, Mr. F. O. Cass, of this city, 

 brought me several leaves and twigs of Oleander upon which (para- 

 doxical as this may seem) were three Black Scales of a uniform white 

 color; some of the other scales were dark brown, while the remaining 

 ones were of the normal brownish-black color. I submitted them to 

 Prof. Riley, and under date of April 23, 1890, he wrote me as follows 

 in regard to them : 



I have received a box containing white " Black Scale." I feel sure that this is 

 Lecauium olece, but do not recollect that I have seen anything like it before. It is 

 more probably to be accounted for as a case of albinism, which is the only case I 

 know of in Coccids. Lecanium does not molt in this way. 



I have never observed this characteristic in any other kind of scale- 

 insect, and it appears to be of rare occurrence among the individuals 

 of the present species. 



The young of Black Scale after issuing from the eggs usually remain 

 beneath the body of the parent for several hours, finally crawling out 

 and taking up a position on some other portion of the plant; they do 

 not settle down in one place permanently, but change about as circum- 

 stances may make it necessary. I have seen half-grown individuals 

 thus crawling about. As a rule they infest only the leaves and bark; 

 only in rare instances do they attack the fruit. The eggs first laid are 

 hatched out before the last egg is deposited, and thus the processes of 

 deposition and hatching proceed simultaneously until the last egg- 

 has been deposited. The number of eggs deposited by a single female 

 is simply enormous; as stated above, I counted beneath one of them 

 over 2,200 eggs and young larvse, all of which were undoubtedly the 

 progeny of this female. 



Among the insect enemies of the Black Scale may be mentioned the 

 Twice-stabbed Ladybird (Chilocorus Mmdnerus Mills.), the larva of 

 which I have repeatedly caught in the act of feeding upon these scales. 

 I have also seen the larva of the Tineid moth, Blastobasis iceryceella Riley, 

 feeding upon these scales. I find by reference to my note book that on 

 the 11th of March, 1887, 1 found a larva of this species beneath three 

 empty full-grown Black Scales on an olive tree; this I transferred to 

 one of my breeding cages, in which I placed a branch of an olive tree 

 upon which were Black Scales of all sizes. A few days later I examined 

 this cage and found that the larva had spun a thin, loose silken web 

 over some of the Black Scales and had partially devoured several of the 

 half-grown ones. This larva had changed to a chrysalis when examined 

 on the 4th of May following and the moth issued May 28. A full de- 

 scription of this insect will be found in the Annual Report of this De- 

 partment for 1886 (pp. 484-486), and a figure of the moth is also given 

 at Fig. 3, PI. in, of the above-meiitioned report. 



By far the most effectual destroyer of the Black Scale, however, is a 



