An Account of the Insects Noxious to Agriculture and Plants in New Zealand: The Scale Insects (Coccididae)Maskell, William Miles
Science
An Account of the Insects Noxious to Agriculture and Plants in New Zealand: The Scale Insects (Coccididae)
Maskell, William Miles
Insects -- New Zealand; Scale insects
A sketch of Ctenochiton enclosing a parasitic pupa, and of the perfect
fly, will be found in Plate xxiii. In a work like this the generic and
specific characters of these parasites need not be given: they do not
seem to differ much from hymenopterous and dipterous insects of other
countries.
Another mode by which the too rapid increase of Coccids is checked is
by the attacks of vegetable parasites--fungoid growths which permeate
the whole body of the insect, and soon kill it. As far as experience in
New Zealand extends as yet the genera _Ctenochiton_, _Lecanium_, and
probably _Eriochiton_ are the only ones so attacked. On certain plants
in the forests, notably Hedycarya and Coprosma, circular spots may
be commonly found on the under side of the leaves: some dark-brown,
somewhat convex, some bright yellow and often quite globular. In
spring, examination of a young larva of _Ctenochiton viridis_--a
species very common on the above plants--will frequently show, either
within the insect, or on its waxy test, or between the test and the
insect, minute specks, which under a high power of the microscope,
prove to resemble the filaments composing the brown or the yellow spots
just mentioned. On turning over one of the brown fungi, or on pulling
it to pieces, the dead body of a young _Ctenochiton_ or _Lecanium_
larva will always be found in the middle. Apparently this brown fungus
does not attack any but young larvæ; but the bright yellow fungus will
be found filling the bodies also of the females in the second stage,
and the globular portion of the fungus will stand out above them.
These fungi are not of the same genus as _Empusa_, the fungus which so
frequently kills the house-fly; but they seem to act in much the same
way within the insect.
Probably a good many of the _Lecanodiaspidæ_ are preyed on and
destroyed by these fungoid parasites, of which figures are given in
Plate xxiii.
CHAPTER V.
REMEDIES AGAINST COCCIDIDÆ.
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