THE COTTONY-CUSHION SCALE. 39 



the bodies of female Icery^. Let us hope that this latter 

 little fly will be to us as valuable as the Lestophonus has 

 been. With regard to the so-called Australian Ladybird, 

 Novius cardinalis^ a great deal has been written, especi- 

 ally in the very valuable American publications ;' also in 

 Australian works, as well as those of other countries. It 

 is also due to the exertions of the late Frazer Crawford 

 and especially to Mr. A. Koebele, who so ably and per- 

 sistently stuck to the somewhat unthankful and difficult 

 task of transporting these ladybirds to the United States 

 and elsewhere, that the valuable orange groves of America 

 and the Cape of Good Hope have been saved from utter 

 destruction. Novius cardinalis — we prefer to use the old 

 name (see Plate XIX., Figs. 5 and 11)— is a small dark- 

 red^ and black little beetle, very lively, and covered with 

 a kind of " bloom," which rubs off on the beetle beino- 

 touchecl. The larvsB (see Plate XIX., Fig. 1) on branch 

 is pinkish and hairy (see also Fig. 3), and is very 

 voracious, tearing as it does the Icerya to pieces as a 

 dog would tear a piece of meat. They increase very 

 rapidly, and when introduced into an orchard where there 

 is Icerya they soon make themselves quite at home and 

 devour the scale in all directions. The beetle itself is 

 also very partial to the Icerya, and they can be seen 

 racing up and down amongst the branches until they 

 come^ to an Icerya, large or small it is all one to the 

 vedaHa, who at once seizes it and kills it. 



Another little beetle of the same genus, named by the 

 Eev. Mr.^ Blackburn Novius bellus (see Plate XIX., 

 Fig. 10), is also a great destroyer of scale, and was sent 

 to me by Mr. Pye, of Dookie College, Victoria, as 

 destroying a fluffy scale, which latter I afterwards found 

 to be Eriococcus multispinus^ and which by experunent 

 I found the little ladybird to destroy in 2:reat numbers. 

 I had no larvae of the latter species of Novius, but the 

 little beetle would appear to have all the sanguinary 

 qualities of its colleague, N. cardinalis. A small species 

 of Rhizobius (see Plate XIX., Fig. 2) I found to be 

 "polishing off" the scale at a great rate, so that we may 



