the TASMANIAN NATURALIST. 
tho vin i mil !° ns ® ^“*86 it has done to 
.sects f? i " Ul Kur ?I*e), frogspittie in- 
but err ^''oppcrs, cicadas (frequently 
te n ;;„ 0Mi! r 5ly kn ° wn ™ locust ij 
0 :.i. * er P 8 > and scale insects (“coc- 
cUae ). all belong to this order, it is 
only,, however, with the Vast family that 
,w;> L ‘ cl,nCL ‘ rneJ ' Hie scale insects 
<i-n\e their name from the tact that 
»mvn at “,“ lny of the species appear like 
fw,i‘ , exore8 eence s on tne leaves, 
, or fruit of various olants. Tho 
family may be roughly divided into throe 
sections, the first consisting of species 
" iutii. retain their legs during the whole 
o their life, the second consisting of spe 
CIOS in which the legs are lost by one 
sex and scaly coverings (entirely separat¬ 
ed from the insects but serving to pro¬ 
tect them) are formed, and the third in 
Which the legs may or may not be lost, 
and which live within woody) excrescences 
they cause to grow upon the stems or 
leaves of the plants attacked. To tho 
hist section belong the mealy bugs, 
cochineal insects, and tile cottony cushion 
«cale; the latter was accidentally intro- 
dueed to California and elsewhere, 
and did enormous damage before 
it was kept in check by the in¬ 
troduction of its natural enemies. The 
cochineal insect is one of the very few 
useful insects of the group; toe meaty 
bugs are nearly) all destructive, but a few 
tlie root-feeding species serve a= 
cows' tor various kinds of ants. To 
this section also' belong the "paradise” 
Ilies, a group of insects of which the 
males are very beautiful, with two fine 
wings, bright red eyes and long tails 
of shining, glassy) filaments. The females 
are much larger, of a. dark brown colour, 
and without wings and tail. In 
fact, in the. whole of the family 
the females are always wingless, and 
the males winged, when full-grown: 
with some of the species the mules vastly 
exceed the females in number, whilst in 
others tile males have never been seen, 
in the second section many ol the ac¬ 
cepted definitions of insects do not hold 
good, for the larva is frequently of 
more perfect shape and with more senses 
than the adult insect. The section con¬ 
tains more species than the others com¬ 
bined, nnd the members of it ai e Known 
a s ‘armoured” scales, one of them being 
only too well known to Tasmanian or- 
chardists; this is the introduced mussel 
stale (“My'tilaspis pomorum”). The fe¬ 
males of this species lay eggs which 
are protected against other insects 
and the weather by coveting scales; 
from the eggs in the summer 
active larvae sire hatched; these larvae 
each possess six legs, a pair of antennae, 
and a pair of compound eyies. In this 
stage the sexes cannot be distinguished. 
After scurrying over the plant attacked 
(usually the apple) in search of a suit¬ 
able place to settle, one is selected, and 
the larva inserts its rostrum into the 
bark or fruit to suck up its juices; it 
grows rapidly, forming a protecting scale 
over itself as it develops, and soon com¬ 
pletely loses its legs, eyes, and antennae; 
with the female these are never regained. 
The male not only regains them, but ob¬ 
tains a pair of wings as web; he loses 
hi» sucking apparatus, however, whilst 
this is retained by the female throughout 
her life. The body of the winged male 
is divided into tile usual parts of a ma¬ 
ture insect, namely, the head, thorax, 
and abdomen; whilst the mature female 
has the head and thorax iu one piece, 
ami not distinctly separated from the 
abdomen, it might be thought that the 
females of this section being wingless 
and legless, no insects would Lie less liable 
to be transported, but several of them 
have become acclimatised practically) all 
over tlie world. I 11 West Australia the 
females of one species of this group live 
fully half an inch beneath the bark, their 
only communication with the air being 
by means of 11 long glassy bin men t or 
tail, which is usually first noticed on 
account of its having a small drop of 
nectar-like substance oozing from its 
tip. Many species of all three sections, 
however, give off a substance known as 
•‘honey dew,” and which is greatly re¬ 
lished by ants and other insects. The 
species of the third or gall-forming sec¬ 
tion have their headquarters in Austra¬ 
lia, and all of them are highly re¬ 
markable. By puncturing the leaves 
or stems of trees they cause peculiar 
woody growths or "gulls” to form, and 
these growths are constant in appear¬ 
ance. Thus in the genus “Bracliyscelis”; 
(the species of which attack the eucalypti) 
one gall is about six inches in length, 
and supported by o long thin stalk, an¬ 
other is pear-shaped, another apple¬ 
shaped, another has the crown turret- 
shaped, and so on. One species is greedi 
]y eaten by the blacks of North-West 
Australia, fn the majority of species 
the gall contains but one chamber, but 
several contain two. With some the 
male gall grows on the female gall, in 
others the female galls grow on twigs, 
whilst the males grow in -Sense mush¬ 
room-shaped masses on leaves, in one 
species the. gall is formed in the solid 
wood itself. The insects themselves >re 
usually able to move up and down with¬ 
in the galls. The male on ail lining his 
wings leaves his gall, but the female 
is confined for life. She either produces 
living young or dies full of eggs, these 
eventually hatch out, but in either case 
the young leave by an opening at the 
top of the gall. 
