Adult female elongated, segmented; greenish-white; length, about 1/24in. Rudimentary antennæ visible. Abdomen ending with a median depression, and inconspicuous lobes; several scattered spiny hairs. Eight groups of spinnerets: four, containing each from twenty to thirty orifices, are placed in opposite pairs, the fifth, with four to six orifices, being between the upper pair; above these, three other groups form an arch, the two outer ones having eight to ten openings, the middle one three to five. Many single spinnerets.
Adult male of a bright scarlet or deep-orange colour. The antennæ, covered with longish hairs, have ten joints, the first two very short and thick; the next five long, equal, and cylindrical; the eighth and ninth somewhat shorter; the tenth fusiform, and as long as the seventh. The legs are rather long; the femur thick, the tibia more slender, broadening towards the tarsus, which is about one-third as long as the tibia, and narrows sharply down to the claw. Both tarsus and tibia are hairy. The digitules are fine hairs.
Habitat—On Veronica, sp., and Leucopogon Fraseri, North Kowai River, Canterbury; on Cyathodes acerosa, Wellington; on ferns, Napier.
Genus: FIORINIA, Targioni-Tozzetti. Uhleria, Comstock; 2nd Entom. Rep., Cornell Univ., 1883, p. 110.
Female puparium elongated; first pellicle small, at one end; second pellicle very large, entirely covering the insect, and almost extending to the edges of the puparium.
Male puparium elongated; smaller and narrower than that of the female; sometimes carinated; pellicle at one end.
Mr. Comstock proposes the name "Uhleria" for this genus, because Professor Targioni, establishing his genus for the species to which he originally gave the name of Diaspis fioriniæ, changed at the same time the specific name to "pellucida." This, Mr. Comstock says, necessitates now an entirely new generic name.
Targioni's nomenclature has been followed here, as likely to lead to less confusion.
26. Fiorinia asteliæ, Maskell.
Diaspis gigas, Maskell.