380 
THE WEST INDIAN RUFOUS SCALE. 
(Aspidiotus articulatus, Morgan.) 
By T. D. A. COCKERELL, Kingston, Jamaica. 
In August, 1889 (Ent. Mo. Mag., Vol. XXv, p. 352), Mr. A. C. F. Morgan 
published a description of Aspidiotus articulatus, a new species from 
Demerara, as follows: 
Early in July, 1891, I found the same species at Barbados, and on 
arriving at Jamaica found it again abundantly on various plants in 
Kingston. The scale is circular and quite flat, whitish in color, but 
always appearing reddish or orange in the center, owing to the body of 
the animalshowing through. Itisan extremely easy species to identify, 
because the seale on being pushed or lifted by a knife blade at once 
comes off, leaving the very flat female Coccid beneath, which is recog- 
nized by its orange color and its strong segmentation, which latter 
character is easily seen with an ordinary pocket lens. 
The figures given (1. c. Pl. v, Figs. 3, 5) by Morgan show the charac- 
ters of the terminal plate, but otherwise are not very characteristic. 
In Fig. 5 the proportions of the parts are not good, and the general 
shape, so different from that observed by me, that Lat first regarded 
the Jamaican form as a new species, allied to but distinct from articula- 
tus. However, I sent specimens of my species to Mr. Morgan, who 
identified them as articulatus, and wrote suggesting that his 2 might 
have been gravid. This could hardly be, as I took a 2 full of eggs 
off a rose bush in Kingston, and it was quite of the usual shape; but 
Mr. Morgan very kindly sent me one of his Demerara specimens, and 
on comparing it with mine I found them identical in all essential par- 
ticulars. 
The normal (and, according to my experience, invariable) shape of 
the thorax is in outline that of a hemisphere, sometimes more or less 
compressed. The abdomen forms a triangle, of which the base is about 
one-fifth longer than either side. The terminal segment is large and 
well marked off from the rest. The eggs are oval, and many may at 
times be counted within the body of the 2. I have examined very 
many specimens of the 2, and all have been flat, none even rounded 
and plump, like some of the other species. | 
The peculiar characters of this species are so marked that it ought 
surely to be placed in a new genus or subgenus, but pending a revision 
of Aspidiotus it may be convenient to regard it as the type of a section, 
Articulati. 
FOOD-PLANTS. 
A. articulatus abounds on a great variety of plants. In Kingston I 
have found it on Olive, Lignum Vite, Oleander, Rose, Orange, Ficus, 
Cocoanut, and other palms, and various plants not identified. It nor- 
