Maskell has described 8 species from Australia (Trans. N. Zealand Inst. 1896); most of these descriptions, however, were based upon the larval tests or scales (and not the adult insects) which had been sent to him under the idea that they were scale insects; so that whoever takes up the study of snow-flies will have to breed them out, to be sure of the identity of his species. _Aleurodes styphelia_ forms a flattened, oval, black test fringed with white waxy tubes almost as long as the encircled larva, scattered about over the leaves of _Styphelia richei_, a common scrub bush about Sydney. _Aleurodes t-signata_ forms a spiny black test; and with a second undetermined pale yellow species without a marginal fringe, is found about Sydney on the foliage of _Acacia longifolia_. Another species, _A. banksiae_, is found upon both the honeysuckle (_Banksia_) and the bottle brush (_Callistemon_). In Maskell’s paper, which is an important contribution to the study of these small but very interesting insects, he lists 65 known species belonging to the typical Genus _Aleurodes_; some have since been described from America, of which a few have been placed in the Genus _Aleurodicus_, formed by Douglas for those with a distal and basal branch on both wings. Family 9. Scale Insects. COCCIDAE. These insects take their popular name of scale insects from the habit that many of the typical species have of protecting themselves, after they have settled down on their food plant, by forming a shield or scale over their backs under which they feed and produce their eggs or living larvae. To form the scale the moulted larval skin, called the pellicle, becomes a nucleus in the first place, round which exudations are added until the scale insect ceases growing. The larvae are pale yellow, pink, or dull-red coloured little creatures, oval or shield-shape in form, usually fringed round the margins of the body with fine filaments, which are often long upon the somewhat thickened irregularly-jointed antennae and form longer setae upon the tip of the abdomen. They have distinct black eyes, well-developed legs; the mouth is pointed and beak-like. At this stage of their existence the sexes do not differ in outward appearance, but when they attach themselves to their food plant the males and females of the same species often construct scales of very dissimilar form; while in others the male scales are simply more elongate than those of the female.