Adult male very small, brown or yellow in colour. The antennæ have ten joints: the two first joints are very small, round, and smooth; the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth equal in length; the seventh, eighth, and ninth half as long; the tenth somewhat shorter still, and pointed. All the last eight joints show numerous hairs. The thorax is short and thick, the thoracic band occupying more than one-half the width; the abdomen short, the double spike of some length. The wings are oval, about as long as the body. The legs are hairy, femora thick, tibiæ longer, thicker at the end next the tarsus than at the other end; tarsi broad at the top, tapering gradually down to the usual single claw. The hairs on the femora are much fewer than those on the tibiæ and tarsi.
Habitat—On oranges and lemons in shops, very abundant, often several hundreds on a single fruit; on orange- and lemon-trees, Governor's Bay, Canterbury; and Auckland.
This insect is European, and has been introduced here from Australia. It is exceedingly destructive to orange and lemon groves in America and Australia. Mr. Comstock (Report of the Entomologist, U.S. Dep. of Agric., 1881, p. 295) records an instance where a grove of thirty-three acres, which in 1872 produced a rental of £1,800, could fetch in 1878 only £120, on account of the ravages of this insect.
Orange- and lemon-growers in the north of New Zealand should beware of this pest. It is scarcely likely that it should be harmless here when it is so destructive elsewhere.
The remedies most likely to be efficacious have been mentioned in the introductory chapters of this work.
6. Aspidiotus dysoxyli, Maskell.
N.Z. Trans., Vol. XI., 1878, p. 198.
Female puparium circular, somewhat convex, brown in colour; diameter, about 1/15in.
Male puparium smaller, oval, brown.
Adult female bright-yellow, corrugated, the corrugations overlapping the abdominal region, which is comparatively small. There are four groups of spinnerets, the upper pair with ten openings, the lower with nine, many scattered oval and oblong spinnerets. The abdomen ends in six lobes, of which only the two median are conspicuous; between the lobes fine serrated hairs. The abdomen is very velvety.