124, 
‘The deposition of eggs, or the production of living young in the Armoured | 
as in other Scale Insects, is attended by and results in a great shrinkage of the 
hinder portion of the body, and the latter never afterwards expands again. 
Reference to Figs. 7 and 8 on Plate III. illustrates this phenomenon in the 
case of the Purple Round Scale—Aspidiotus ficus. The insect does not, how- 
ever, immediately die, but on the other hand may yet remain alive several days, 
the procedure of dying being associated with a gradual drying up of its entire 
body. These eggs may remain when once born for a considerable time beneath 
the scale of their parent, and, in fact—as has been concluded from local obser- 
vations—may pass the entire winter months in this position. At other times 
they hatch within a few days, during which time they darken in colour, as the 
embryo that they contain progresses in development. It must be also borne in 
mind that the protecting scale may remain fora long time attached to the plant 
after the animal that it has protected is dead, and especially is this the case 
with closely adhering kinds—e.g., Wax Scales (Ceroplastes)—and gall-forming 
species. 
: From the foregoing observations relating to the Soft Scales (Lecanide) and 
the Armoured Scales (Diaspinz) it will be concluded that what is the outward 
presentment of the insect consists of a peculiar shield that is either compose 
of the body-wall strengthened by special horny matter produced by dermal 
glands, or is a separable object formed in part of exuvie (molted skins), but 
mainly of an inorganised secreted substance, and that this has for its function 
the protection of the delicate body of the insect proper (that may often itself 
_ escape observation) and of the eggs or young that it may produce. 
This is also the case with the scale insects included in other sub-families, 
as well as with kinds other than those alluded to, but comprised in the same 
group with them. Inthe Mealy Bug—Daetylopius (Plate IL., Fig. 8)—the 
secreted material that protects the body takes the form of white farinose 
(mealy) matter that occurs as distinct particles, and outwardly projecting 
peor eae of similarly constituted waxy substance. The eggs, on the other 
and, are for the most part held immediately beneath the body of the insect 
from which they issue in a mass of white wool-like fibre, also of wax. The 
Pulvinaria Seale (Plate II., Fig. 6) has the hard covering of the Lecanium, but 
this in it merely serves to protect the body, the eggs being placed in an 
elongated white sac-like appendage that extends behind it for a distance many 
times exceeding its length. The Cottony Cushion Scale—Icerya Purchasi, 
Maskell—has again, like Pulvinaria, a separate similarly constituted ovisac, but 
this, like the parent insect itself, is very different in shape, and regularly fluted 
above (vide Plate IIJ., Fig. 7). In the Wax Scale—represented by Ceroplastes 
ruber, Mask. (Plate II., Fig. 5), we have the body and the eggs also—as in. 
the Soft Scales (Lecanium, spp.)—protected by a special covering. This now 
occurs as a thick deposit composed of wax, densely compacted together, that 
_ 1s closely applied to the surface of the plant upon which the insects rests—so 
dense and so closely applied indeed that respiration would doubtless be 
impossible were it not for the existence of open slits that exist in it at the site 
of the four spiracles—two on each side of the body—as shown in the figure 
referred to (Fig. 5a). In Carteria the covering for both body and eggs 18 
composed of lac—or wax and resin combined. Finally, many Scale Insects 
live under the protection of and within woody galls of various strange shapes, 
whose origin on the plants they affect they themselves determine. This occurs 
in the Australian Brachyscelinew. 
Hitherto in this article reference has been made exclusively to the female 
insects and its transformations ; but with the Scale Insects, as may be inferred 
from the foregoing statement regarding the rarity with which the opposite sex 
occurs, and the possibility indeed of the ensuement of the act of reproduction 
independently of its existence, the male insect need not always necessarily 
claim such consideration on the part of the agriculturist or horticulturist as 
must inevitably the former sex. In some species of Scale Insects the male 
sex is, however, well represented. ‘This is especially so with many of the 
‘ 
