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Fitch's Point ( East Greenwich P.O.) Washington Co. N.Y.
October 25th 1854.
My Dear Sir:-
In the cottony mass which you have the kindness to send me,
I am unable to find anything but fragments too broken and pressed out of shape
to throw much light upon the species which produced this substance. I however find
one entire scale, of a regular oval form, three hundreths of an inch in length and
half as much in breadth, of a dirty yellowish color, with an elevated line in the
middle of the back. This is in all probability the relicts pupa, being so very
like the pupa of other species of this family. Fabricius describes a Coccus inhab-
iting the common fig, a tree so closely related to the Osage Orange that it is at
least questionable whether the insect upon the latter may not be the same species.
He describes it as roundish, of a ferruginous color, with a paler, elevated margin.
Some of the larger fragments in the mass you send me, appear colored as
described, but they are so pressed and flattened that I cannot ascertain whether the
margin is elevated. The old genus coccus is now divided into eleven genera. Most
of the bark-lice on the trees and shrubs of this country pertain to the modern genus
Lecanium - and this Osage Orange insect probably belongs to this genus.
The mode in which the Aphidae and Coccidae sometimes get to the vegetation
which they infest, is truly mysterious. Some years ago a tamerack growing in my
front yard became overrun with a louse, of which I could never find an
individual with wings: - and there are no other Tamerack Trees growing within
several miles of this. A barberry bush in my yard was brought here from
Connecticut some 50 years ago, and is the only one I know of in this region.
Yet an Aphis made its appearance, in numbers, on this bush, about ten years
ago. I supposed this was a new species, not finding it mentioned in any of