112 



search of a place for attachment, these crawl upon the bird's legs 

 anci the insect body, and by them carried o-reat distances. Some- 

 time, and when they stop to rest again, the larvae or some of 

 them crawl off and if the food plant is favorable increase there 

 and thus a new colony is started. Man, however, is the most 

 significant transporting agent, especially when great distances are 

 considered. Wherever he w^ent he carried his domesticated 

 plants with him and upon them he also unwittingly carried the 

 agents of destruction of those plants. So regular and certain 

 was he to carry the purple scale upon citrus trees from country 

 to country that now the origin of the insect is unknown because 

 its distribution is universal wdierever citrus plants are grown. 



Enemies. — There are several enemies of the purple scale in the 

 Territory, but their combined effort seems at times to avail us 

 little in checking the pest. As descriptions of these will follow 

 later we will here only name them. Two ladybird's, the orange 

 and steel-blue, are always to be found, tho but sparingly, on 

 trees infested wath this scale. They doubtless devour a good 

 many scales, but they also feed upon other scale insects on these 

 trees, and being few^ in number, their work is not telhng. The 

 same may be said of the internal parasites that manifest their 

 work upon male and immature female scales by the round holes 

 of their exit through the scale after devouring the insect be- 

 neath it. These parasites also attack other scale insects, hence, 

 not being specific enemies of the purple scale their work is 

 seldom etTective. This spring most of the trees examined, es- 

 pecially the limbs and trunks look remarkably free of scale. Pos- 

 sibly the rains of the past season have depleted their numbers and 

 possibly also the parasite have, temporarily at least, gained the 

 upper hand'. 



Remedies. — A simple, inexpensive and effective remedy against 

 this pest is the application of a soap (common or w^hale oil) 

 solution (soap, i lb. in water, 4 galls.) applied" with an efficient 

 spray pump, while the solution is hot, three or four times in suc- 

 cession at intervals of two weeks. While it is doubtful w^hether 

 this wash affects the full grown scale owing to its water-proof 

 armor (this group is known as ''armored scales") it is sure to 

 kill every young larva it covers, and repeated, should kill all 

 young that may hatch subsequently. That the application must 

 be thoro goes without saying. Every larva possible must be 

 killed or the work is correspondingly nullified in proportion to 

 the number of larvae left alive. 



{To he eontinued.) 



