Bugs, Cicadas, Aphids, and Scale-insects 
1 81 
tunity to make easy acquaintance with one or two species at our breakfast- 
tables; the flattish, nearly circular little red-brown spots, or the more 
ovate blackish spots, which are occasionally to be seen on carelessly packed 
oranges are scale-insects and excellent examples of the extreme of degen¬ 
erate, quiescent type. The adult male scale-insects, unlike the females, 
are winged (although possessing but a single pair) and have eyes, an¬ 
tennas, and legs, but, strangely enough, no mouth-parts nor mouth-opening, 
so that they can take no food and must necessarily have but a few hours or 
perhaps days, at most, of life. And they are much more rarely seen 
than the females. Indeed, of many scale-insect species the males are not 
yet known, it being possible that in some species there is no male sex at 
all. 
The economic importance of the scale-insects has been keenly appre¬ 
ciated on the Pacific Coast ever since fruit-growing came to be a leading 
industry there, but the rest of the United States had not had to worry itself 
much because of the existence of these insect-scourges until recent years. 
A single Coccid species, however, has 
within ten years called the attention 
of entomologists and orchardmen 
and legislators all over the country to 
itself in a very illuminating manner. 
This species, the ill-named San Jose 
scale, Aspidiotus perniciosus ,—which 
should rather be called “the perni¬ 
cious scale,” or, if not that, then the 
Oriental scale, as it is a native of Japan 
or China,—was first made known to 
science, and named, by Prof. J.H. Com¬ 
stock in 1880. Professor Comstock’s specimens were collected in the Santa 
Clara Valley near San Jose, California. How much earlier the species 
had been brought to California is not known, but at the time of its naming 
by Professor Comstock it was already recognized by California fruit-growers 
as a serious pest, and Comstock wrote: “From what I have seen of it I think 
it is the most pernicious scale-insect known in this country.” In August, 
1893, it was found to have got a footing in the east, and since then no other 
injurious insect—indeed hardly all others together—has received such con¬ 
stant and excited attention as has this obscure little pest. It is found now 
in every state and territory of the Union, and in Canada as well, and in 
thirty-five states has been the subject of hurried—and only partly well- 
advised—legislation. This legislation has been directed toward restricting 
its spread by (a) quarantining it at the states’ borders, and (b) inspecting 
orchards and nurseries for it within the state and attempting to stamp it 
Fig. 250.—San Jose scale on bark of fruit- 
tree. (After Slingerland; natural size.) 
