THE INSECT WORLD. 



Ill 



numerous enough to require treatment. It usually attracts atten- 

 tion in spring, when white cottony masses become numerous on 

 twigs or leaves, increasing in size until they are one-fourth of 

 an inch or more 



in length, and only Fig. 83. 



slightly less in diam- 

 eter, though irregu- 

 lar in outline. The 

 mass seems cottony, 

 but is actually a wax 

 or gum, for, if a bit 

 is taken with a for- 

 ceps it can be drawn 

 out into strings of 

 considerable length. 

 When of this size it 

 forms a bedding for 

 innumerable, rusty- 

 brown, minute eggs, 

 which have been 

 laid by the female 

 insect under the 

 brown scale which 

 seems to form the 

 head of the mass at- 

 tached to the twig. 



From these eggs minute, crawling larvae hatch, much like the 

 eggs in color, and which separate in every direction in what seems 

 to be a moving mass of fine dust particles. In a day or two each 

 lar^'a inserts its beak into a leaf or twig, and commences the for- 

 mation of a little, flattened, oval, somewhat mottled scale. They 

 remain thus, feeding and increasing in size, and as they increase 

 the scales enlarge. The males come to maturity in the latter part 

 of the summer, appearing as minute, two-winged flies, furnished 

 with long anal filaments. They mate with the females which re- 

 main under the scale, and these, before the leaves fall, migrate to 

 the twigs or branches, where they fasten themselves to pass the 

 winter. Feeding is resumed in spring, when the sap begins to 

 circulate, and then the egg masses begin to form. Before the 



Cottony maple scale, Pulvinaria innumerabilis , showing, at 

 a, the female on a leaf and, at b, same on a twig. 



