THE COCCIDAE OF THE CASUARINAS. By Walter W. Froggatt. (Plate xxix; thirty-six Text-figures.) [Read 27th September, 1933.] The Casuarinas, popularly known as Sheoaks or Bulloaks, are remarkable in having no true foliage. The main branches spread out from the stem and carry slender cylindrical jointed branchlets, with each ring encircled with small bracts which represent the leaves. As might be expected, the insect fauna of the Casuarina is as interesting as the tree, for they adapt their structure to the form of the branchlets. The insects which feed upon, or attach themselves to, the branchlets are usually elongate or angulate when they affix themselves at the base of the branchlet with its attach-ment to the stem. The members of the two gall-making genera, Cylindrococciis and Frenchia, were first collected in Victoria by French, who sent them to New Zealand for Maskell to name and describe. The first are wonderfully likei the seed cones of their host trees and may be formed upon the branches or the tip of the branchlets. The second are double galls, forming on the stems, the basal portion forming a swelling of the tissue, from which, in the typical form, projects a hollow tube, rounded at the tip, in which the female coccid is resting. In the following pages I briefly describe these, list other coccids previously described, and add some new species. AspiDioTus ciNGULATUs Green. This is a very distinctive species, which I figured and described in my Descriptive Catalogue (pt. 1, p. 10). It comes from the Mallee scrublands of North-west Victoria, infesting the branchlets of Casuarina lepidopMoia. The large dark brown scales are so broad that they curl round the branchlets they infest. GYMiN-ASPIS SEERATL'S, U. Sp. Text-flgS. 21, 22. The female tests black, shining, circular, convex, scattered all over the branchlets. Diameter 1 mm. Habitat: New South Wales, on Casuarina sp. 2. Coccid light chocolate-brown, broadly oval, broadest across the posterior portion. Derm showing no definite hairs or spines, slightly crenulated on the sides. Antennae composed of eiglat segments of uniform thickness: 1 very short, 2 small, 3 longest, 4, 6 of uniform length, 7 small, 8 irregular in form; the Avhole fringed with fine hairs from segment 3 to the tip. Pygidium with a pair of finely striated chitinous plates, hardly projecting beyond the margin of the anal segment. The whole almost truncate, with the inner area between the plates angular. Lepidosaphes (Mytilaspis) casuaeinae Maskell. This is the most abundant and widely spread coccid infesting the Casuarinas. Usually the branchlets are so thickly incrusted with the w^hite scales that they are very noticeable.
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