730 Marvels of the Universe 
antenne and well-developed wings. Mr. 
Robert Newstead, the well-known authority on 
scale insects, has found male Mussel Scales upon 
broom and whortleberry plants, but they appear 
to be unknown upon the apple in this country. 
In the case of another common scale insect, 
a frequenter of the ash, alder and willow, the 
males actually predominate. The minute male 
scales of this species may be seen crowded on 
the ash stem to the left of the preceding 
photograph, while the larger female scales are 
scattered over the two remaining stems. As a 
rule, however, male scale insects are greatly in 
the minority as individuals, while science has 
Photo by] [Harold Bastin. 
THE LARGEST SCALE INSECT. 
The female insect is often over an inch in diameter, while 
the male is a mere speck. It is a native of South Africa, and quite failed to discover the males of many 
is particularly abundant on the M’sasa tree. species. 
Two conspicuous scale insects are found upon currant bushes. The species known as the Cottony 
Cushion Scale is especially noticeable where it occurs on account of the cushions, or pads, of white, 
waxy filaments which the females secrete as coverings for their eggs. No “scale ”’ 
sense of the word is formed, the brown object lying above the cushion being the hardened body of 
the adult female. This species, or a closely allied form, is sometimes found as a pest on vines and 
peaches in glasshouses. The Brown Currant Scale is widely distributed, and the reader should have 
no difficulty in finding specimens upon culti- 
vated currant bushes, or upon the so-called 
“flowering currant.”’ Here, again, no scale is 
formed, the eggs being protected by the hard, 
shell-like body of the dead parent. No cottony 
cushion is secreted. 
The largest known scale insect is not unlike 
an enormously magnified “‘ Currant Scale.”’ It 
has been named the Giant Coccid, and is 
indigenous to South Africa. A shrunken speci- 
men in possession of the writer measures more 
in the ordinary 
than one inch in diameter. 
A scale insect familiar to most people, by 
sight if not by name, is the Felted Beech Coccus. 
Owing to the whiteness of the covering secreted 
by the females, and its exposed position on the 
boles and main branches of beech trees, the 
species is most conspicuous. At a distance, the 
trunks look as though frozen sleet had drifted 
against them in a gale of wind. Time was 
when foresters attached no special significance 
to this infestation ; but the insect is now recog- 
: nized as a serious pest, capable, if unmolested, 
Photo by] [Harold Bastin. of working wholesale destruction in beech 
THE COTTONY CUSHION SCALE. woods ; and several years ago the Board of 
The peculiar white “cushions” are formed by pads of white Agriculture issued a leaflet describing the 
waxy filaments used to cover the eggs. The brown object lying 
above the “‘cushion”’ is the dead body of the mother. approved methods of treatment. 
