STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
491 
bark-lice, and who met with the same larvae and also the pupae 
and perfect insects upon the pines on which the scale-insects ot 
which we are speaking occurred. Specimens of the insects and 
their pupae which he sent me, enable me to present an account 
of the preparatory states of this species. The habits of the 
group of insects to which this belongs, were narrated in my last 
report. The lice upon which this species feeds are so exceed¬ 
ingly minute that a large number of them will no more than suf¬ 
fice it for a single meal; and therefore, in the course of its life, 
each individual probably slaughters and devours such a multi¬ 
tude as can scarcely be computed. They thus render us a ser¬ 
vice of great value, and it is to be hoped that no one will fall 
into the enormous mistake of supposing that these lady-birds 
breed the lice among which they are found, and therefore under¬ 
take to exterminate them, as was once done where a similar spe¬ 
cies occurred upon currant bushes, as related in my last report. 
In allusion to its habits this species may be named the Bark- 
louse lady-bird. It pertains to the genus Chilocorus of the Family 
Coccinellid.® and Order Coleoptera. It was noticed more than 
a century ago, by the Swedish naturalist, Kalm, when traveling 
through this country, who supposed it to be identical with the 
European C. bipustulala. It was afterwards for a long time con¬ 
founded with the C. Cacti, Linn., a Mexican species closely re¬ 
lated to it, which feeds upon the Cochineal insect ( Coccus Cacti.) 
We accordingly find it entered under this name in Dr. Harris’s 
Catalogue of the Insects of Massachusetts. Mr, Say corrected 
this error in an article in the Boston Journal of Nat, Hist. (vol. 
i, p. 202) published in 1835, in which he thus speaks of this 
subject“ C. Cacti Fabr. This species occurs abundantly in 
Mexico; it certainly resembles very closely the stigma, Nobis, so 
common in this country, and the renipustulata, Mull, of Europe; 
but it is more than twice the size of either of those insects, and 
may also be distinguished from the former by the superior mag¬ 
nitude of the rufous spot of which the form is transversely oval, 
whilst that of the stigma is orbiculor.” Two years after this, 
this same species was named bivulnerus in the third edition of 
Dejean’s Catalogue, and in 1851 Mulsant (Coleopt. Trimer. Secu- 
rip. p. 460) published a description of it under this latter name, 
