(There is a slight difference in this regard
between different genera, as for instance, Coccus and Dorthesia retain
these organs in different degrees of imperfection, Lecanium and
Aspidiotus losing every trace of them.)
In this limbless, senseless state the females remain fall and winter.
Toward the end of winter these animated galls begin to swell, and those
containing males enter the state of the chrysalis, from which the males
emerge at the beginning of the warm season and fecundate the gall-like
females, which undergo neither chrysalis state nor any other change, but
die, or we may call it dissolve into their offspring, for there scarcely
remains anything of them, except a pruinous kind of down, after having
given birth to the young ones.
Now we come to the practical deduction from these facts. It is clear
that the only time when the scalebug can emigrate and infest a new
tree is the time when it is a larva, that is, when it has the power of
locomotion. In countries with a pronounced winter this time begins
much later than with us, but it ends about the same time, that is, the
beginning of August. I have seen the male of Aspidiotus in February, so
that the active larva may be expected in March, and the active Lecanium
Hesperidum I have seen last year, June 27, at Colonel Hooper's ranch in
Sonoma County. We may safely fix the time of the active scalebug from
March to August.
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