57 
boy to let him examine his ear. He poured in some .sweet oil, then took a straw and 
made a careful examination, after which he laid the hoy on his side, and much to 
his astonishment about 150 maggots came out of his head and dropped onto the 
bench. The supposition is that a blowfly had gotten into the boy's ear some time 
while he was asleep and the maggots had hatched out and crawled into his head out 
of sight, thus causing him much pain. The boy had worked hard during the hay 
harvest, and was not willing to consult a doctor, although after the above discovery 
he was persuaded to do so. 
A NEW PAPER ON SCALE INSECTS. 
Iii the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute for 1892, Mr. W. 
M. Maskell, the well-known writer on Coccidse, publishes along- article 
giving descriptions of a number of new species and notes upon a num- 
ber of described forms. Perhaps the majority of the species were col- 
lected by Mr. Koebele on his recent journey to Australia. Scattered 
through the paper are a number of notes of considerable interest upon 
species already described. We note, for instance, that the Orange 
Chionaspis (Chionaspis citri Comst.), which is the commonest Orange 
scale in Louisiana, occurs also upon Citrus plants in the island of 
Tonga, in the South Pacific. Comstock's Camellia Scale (Fiorinia 
camellice) described from specimens found in Washington greenhouses, 
occurs also on Palms in Australia and on plants of the genus Lep- 
tospermum. Parlatoria proteus Curtis is found also upon the Apple 
in Queensland. Mr. Maskell considers that Lecanium hesperidum and 
L. lauri are identical. He is driven to this conclusion not only by 
the lack of good distinguishing characters, but by the fact that the 
English food plants of the two species are reversed in Australia 
and ]STew Zealand, L. lauri attacking Citrus plants in the latter col- 
onies, while L. hesperidum lives upon Laurel, Ivy, Holly, and other 
plants. Lecanium tessellatum, previously known only upon Palms in 
the hothouses of Europe, occurs upon Laurus in Australia, and L. 
acuminatum, previously known on hothouse orchids in Paris, is found 
upon Guava in the Sandwich Islands. A new species of Icerya is 
described under the name of I. koebelei, from specimens collected in 
Australia by Mr. Koebele upon Leptospermum. It is closely related 
to I.purchasi, but carries an erect dorsal pencil of wax and has invari- 
ably ten-jointed antennas and a very small ovisac in the adult female. 
This is the seventh species of this genus to be described. The paper 
is accompanied by plates drawn by the author. 
Mr. Maskell's papers on the insects of this subfamily are authorita- 
tive. He has worked upon them now for fifteen years, and has done 
almost the sole descriptive work upon the very rich Coccid fauna of 
Australasia. We can not, however, refrain from incidentally reiterat- 
ing our criticism of the etymological form of his group names. He is 
the sole author who uses them, and they are distinctly in violation of 
the formulated rules of zoological nomenclature. There can be no 
sufficient reason for their perpetuation, and we earnestly hope that Mr. 
Maskell will see the necessity of tailing into line with other zoologists. 
