20 DRAGON FLIES VS. MOSQUITOES. 



a careful bibliography has been prepared which will refer 

 him to all important records, in American and Enropean 

 publications, that beiir upon the habits of the dragon fly, 

 and several other questions herein handled. 



The testimony given in Capt. Macauley's letter is simi- 

 lar to that of many residents in the treeless country w^est 

 of Lake Superior, and a thorough study of the character- 

 istics of the Libellulidse of that great region will be await- 

 ed with interest. 



While the present one is probably the first systematic 

 attempt to array the Odonata against the Diptera, it is far 

 from being the first time that the method adopted by Cor- 

 tez in his much bepraised contest in Mexico, of arraying 

 tribe against tribe, has been adopted with advantage by 

 entomologists. 



The brilliant success attending Dr. C. V. Riley's plan 

 of pitting the Cocci nellidse against the Coccidse by colon- 

 izing the Australian Vedalia cardinalis in California, there 

 to attack and exterminate the destructive little insect, the 

 Fluted scale (Icerya purchasi), that bid fair to ruin the 

 orange industry of the Pacific coast, is the most recent ex- 

 ample to the point, and grateful Californians will long 

 honor the scientist and the wise Government that origi- 

 nates and disseminates knowledge of such inestimable 

 value. 



The automatic method is, I am convinced, the only one 

 science in its present state designates as likely to finally 

 succeed in the warfare of extermination that humanity 

 has entered upon against the smaller noxious organisms, 

 and to this end the life history of every animate thing be- 

 comes a matter of public importance. If Riley saved the 

 orange orchards of a nation by thoroughly studying the 



