THE INJURIOUS SCAT.E INSECTS AND MEALY BUGS, &c. 243 
and beneath her body. In then- early stages the insects of this genus are 
not separable from Lecanium, as both larvae and the immature females of 
the two genera are identical. But at the period of parturition the females 
of the genus Pulvinaria protect their eggs with an enormous quantity of 
secretion which may take the form of that in P. rihesice (fig. 105) or th 
long narrow form of P. floccosa (fig. lOG). 
In winter the young are very small, and externally are exactly like 
the young of the Brown Peach Scale. In May the females attain their 
full size, and begin to lay their eggs in the curiously shaped pad of 
white cottony material. When all the eggs are laid the female dies and 
Fig. 106. — Camellia Coccus or Pulvixakia 
{Pulvinaria floccosa) on leaf and branch of Camellia (nat. size). 
leaves her dark brown shrivelled body, tilted almost on end, at the anterior 
extremity of the pad or cushion (scientifically termed the ovisac). In 
August the young insects escape from their cottony home, and take up 
an independent existence on some other part of the plant. 
I have only once met with the covering scale of the male, which 
exactly resembled those of the Lecania, but I have not been fortunate in 
rearing the perfect insect, which probably also bears a strong resemblance 
to the same genus. 
The cottony pads or sacs often get ruptured by the wind, and particles 
are sometimes borne away, like collected patches of gossamer down, and 
