292 



NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



scarcely more than points to the unaided eye moving over the bark 

 (Matthew Cooke has given their size as one-seventyfif th of an inch). 

 They are of an oval form, with the normal number of legs pertain- 

 ing to insects — three pairs — and a pair of antennae. In Fig. 1 of 

 Plate VII, giving an enlarged view of the insect from the under 

 side, its curious long hair-like beak or proboscis which serves it for 

 feeding and for fastening itself to the bark or leaf or fruit, is shown 

 as curled up between the legs. 



The mature female can only be seen by taking her from beneath 

 the scale at the proper time. She then appears in a very different 

 form from that when moving over the bark. In a subsequent molt- 

 ing she had lost her legs and antennae, retaining only for her need her 

 long and delicate proboscis consisting of four hair-like bristles within 

 a two- jointed sheath. Fig. 2 of same Plate represents this stage of 

 the insect, enlarged from the hair-line at the right-hand side. It is 

 6hown from the underside as seen with its transparency in nature, 

 with a number of its young within, — this species, unlike most of 

 the scale-insects, which produce eggs — bringing forth its young 

 alive. Of the several segments into which the body is divided, as 

 indicated in the figure, the last one bears groups of spinnerets, anal 

 and vaginal openings, and upon its border, lobes, incisions, and 

 spines (some of which are shown in enlargement at d) : from the 

 location, number, and form of these, important and reliable charac- 

 ters are drawn for the separation of the species, which may not be 

 found in the study of the external scale alone, where they closely 

 resemble one another. 



Its Life-History 

 Most of the Coceidee are oviparous — that is, they deposit eggs 

 underneath the scale, from which the young are soon thereafter 

 hatched. A few are known to be viviparous, i. e., bringing forth 

 living young, as Aspidiotus tenebricosus occurring on maple, and 

 a few species of the genus Lecanium* It would seem that the 

 San Jose scale, Aspidiotus perniciosus is both oviparous and 

 viviparous, for while generally regarded as giving out its young 

 alive (the young shown within the body of the parent in Fig. 2 of 



* Afl Lecanium Tiesperidum, L. platycerii, L. tulipiferos, and two unnamed 

 species on the red bay and on Acacia.— Riley, in Proc. JSnt. Soc. Wash., Ill, 

 1894, pp. 67, 69. 



