iy 
loan 
Ww 
Entomology. 
SCALE TNSECTS—COCCID. 
By HENRY TRYON, 
Entomologist. 
Or insects that are prejudicial to the successful enterprise of the cultivator 
of the soil, none possibly merit such claim on his consideration as do the 
members of the family Coccide, a family that includes not only Scale Insects 
proper—or so-called ‘ Scale,” but also “‘ Coccus”—or “Mealy Bug,” as well as 
other forms of this class of animal life; for all plants are liable to their attacks, 
and the injuries that they occasion are formidable ones; and, moreover, 2 
knowledge of their appearance and vital characteristics whilst contributing to 
their early recognition serves at the same time as a powerful auxiliary in 
contending with their injurious presence. 
Although present probably throughout the entire temperate and tropical 
EERE of the earth, it is in the latter especially that these insects obtain not 
only their greatest specific variation, but also their highest individual 
numerical development. W. M. Maskell, a great authority on Coccid®, 
reported in 18!4 the occurrence of no less than 298 distinct species am 
varieties (the larger proportion of which have been made known to science by 
himself) of these insects as occurring in Australasia and the Pacific Tslands, 
and since then has added upwards of twenty to this number.* From the same 
source also it will be learned that alarge proportion of these have, as far as 
has yet been ascertained, an exclusively Australian habitat—a remark that 
applies iat to many of the different genera to which the endemic species aré 
assigned. 
It is beyond the scope of this article to allude to, much less to describe, 
the different forms typical of the sub-families and sections into which this 
important family of insects is divisible. For information relating to this phase 
of the subject the reader is referred to various special memoirs dealing with 
the Coccide, but especially to Dr. V. Signoret’s comprehensive “ Hssai sur les 
Cochenilles” +; W. M. Maskell’s various able papers contained in the Trans- 
actions of the New Zealand Institute, that have appeared therein almost 
continuously, year by year, since 1878; and to HE. E. Green’s superb mono- 
graphy on “The Coccidw of Ceylon,” now in course of publication. It is 
proposed, in fact, to limit these introductory remarks to an attempt ab 
affording an insight into the more interesting features that pertain to the 
articular kinds of scale insects that in Queensland at least are most noticeable 
to their destructive work. 
The ordinary observer will have no difficulty in concluding that the Mealy 
Bug—Dactylopius (a species of which genus is at present very prevalent in the 
inflorescence of the Erythrina, or Coral-tree, of our Brisbane gardens)—is 
an insect, for he will readily detect its six legs, and the action of these as it 
pursues its crawling movement ; but it will not be equally obvious to him that 
the same may be predicated concerning the circular, white or red, seale-like 
bodies that may encrust the wood of his rose-plants or tke pale speck-like 
bodies that occur thickly sprinkled over the dark-coloured bark of his citraceous 
trees. And yet it is true also that these belong to the same class as 
W. M. Maskell :—‘‘ Synoptical list of Coccidze reported from ‘Australasia and the Pacific 
Islands up to December, 1894.” Zrans. W. Z. Inst., 1894, xxvii., pp. 1-35. Wellington, 1895. 
+ Annales de la Soc. Entom. de France, Paris, 1868-1876, (Highteen papers.) 
