48 
CLASSIFICATION OF THE ALEYRODIDiE. 
no avail, and as the insect most sagaciously places itself under the leaflet, 
where it is protected against the weather, the heaviest rain does not affect it. 
It has been advised to root up all Cocoa-nut trees in the island, and after the 
lapse of a year, when it is thought the insect may be destroyed, to replant the 
plantations from seeds imported from an island where the insect does not exist. 
" On carefully examining the leaves of the Cocoa-nut, it is evident there are 
two distinct insects upon the under surface, an Aleyrodes and a Coccus. They 
adhere to the under side of the leaf, and are surrounded by a whitish cottony 
or resinous powder ; both sexes of the Aleyrodes at rest and with their wings 
closed are exhibited, of their natural size, on a portion of the leaf (fig. 1) [fig. 
6. 11, and also some oval animals producing the white powder in abundance 
from the margins of their sides, and these I suppose are the larva state of the 
Aleyrodes. There are also numbers of white linear cases, as shown at fig. 5 
[fig. 6, 5], which I conceive to be the pupa? of a male Coccus; indeed I found 
one of the perfect insects sticking to the surface. At fig. 2 [fig. 6. 2] I have 
represented the under side of one of the larva? ; it is oval, concave, ochreous, and 
shining, with six minute legs and ventral wings, like a female Coccus; but I 
could not detect any proboscis or antenna?. I must, however, observe that the 
objects had all suffered from extreme pressure and great heat, and it is not 
unusual for the proboscis to be 
broken off in removing such ani- 
mals from the surface on which 
they are feeding." 
The winged specimens are 
larger than any of our British 
Aleyrodes, and from the neura- 
tion of the w r ings being different, 
as well as from the remarkable 
anal forceps of the male, this in- 
sect might with great propriety 
be separated from the genus 
Aleyrodes. A. cocois is bright 
ochreous, the head is rounded, 
the eyes are black, oval, and 
notched on the inside, and I think I could discern two minute ocelli on 
on the inner margins; the antenna? are as long as the thorax, slender, 
and apparently seven-jointed, basal joint stoutish ; second, the longest. 
The rostrum is stout and moderately long; the thorax is nearly orbicular, the 
scutel distinct, the abdomen short and oval in the male, with the last segment 
long, narrowed, and cylindrical, producing two long incurved claws, forming 
a pair of forceps (fig. 3) [fig. 6, 3]; wings apparently horizontal in repose, 
clothed with white scales or hairs, giving them a powdered appearance; su- 
perior ample, subelliptical, with a strong costal nervure, and a furcate one 
with a longitudinal nervure beneath It, issuing from near the base; inferior 
Wings smaller/ with a single forked nervure. Six legs slender, hinder long 
bin simple; the tarsi Inarticulate, basal joint the longest, the second terminated 
by two slender claws. Female similar, but the abdomen is ovate-conic, the 
apex terminated by a very acute transparent valve with a small oval hairy 
lobe on each tide I fig. 4), I fig. G, <$]. 
As insects will remain in an embryo state for long periods, every vestige 
of the infested trees should be burnt as soon as they are taken down, and the 
most Allgenl search must be made after the Aleyrodes upon plants of the 
game natural order as the Cocoa-nut, to ascertain if there are not colonics 
established elsewhere. There is the larva of a little beetle, called Bcymnui, 
Fig. 6. — Aleurodicus cocois: 1, Insects on leaf; 
2, pupa case; 3, adult; k, abdomen. (From 
Curtis.) 
