Vol. Ill, ]Vo. 3. INSECT LIFE. Issued IVovember, 1§90. 



SPECIAL NOTES. 



Name of the Oyster-shell Bark-louse of the Apple.— Mr. Albert C. F. 

 Morgan has been briogiDg together some very interesting bibliographic 

 notes concerning scale-insects and has been publishing from time to 

 time in the Entomologists' Monthly Magazine for the past year or two. 

 His comments upon the insect which we have learned to know as Myti- 

 laspis pomorinn Bouche, are given in the August, 1890, number of this 

 journal and are worthy of comment. Mr. Morgan, from a comparison 

 of descriptions, has lumped many names as synonyms of Modeer's 

 Coccus linearis. Among them is our common apple species. He brings 

 forth many facts in support of his views, but we would protest against 

 the adoption of the name Mytilaspis linearis for this species. In the 

 first place, as Mr. Morgan himself must be aware, all arguing from the 

 mere descriptions of Diaspince, particularly those of the genus Mytilas- 

 pis, which were drawn up without reference to characters of the anal 

 plate, must be based upon extremely problematical and uncertain 

 grounds. There is absolutely no way in which we can be certain that Cur- 

 tis's Aspidiotus conchiformis^ Fitch's Aspidiotus j^iglandis, and Schrank's 

 Coccus pincti^ for example, are one and the same species, without secur- 

 ing the actual specimens which these authors had before them at the 

 time when their descriptions were drawn up, mounting them carefully 

 and making careful studies of the anal plate, and, if possible, of the 

 males. We were perfectly willing to adopt Professor Comstock's care- 

 fully worked out dictum to the effect that Mytilaspis pomicorticis Riley 

 is a synonym of Bouche's pomorum in spite of the not thoroughly well 

 explained differences in the color of the eggs and the other reasons 

 given in the fifth report on the insects of Missouri ; but now that for 

 ten years entomologists have generally treated of this Apple scale as M. 

 pomorum, it is too much to expect that, simply from Mr. Morgan's com- 

 parisons of the descriptions, this name should be dropped in favor of 

 linearis. The uncertainty and insufficiency of the proof renders the 

 change very undesirable. 



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