40 DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS OF VICTORIA: 



yet be able to add to our Icerya parasites, and probably 

 those of other scales also. There are several other small 

 beetles not far removed in general appearance from these 

 known scale destroyers, one being a small black and 

 reddish-brown beetle, Cryptolaemus Montrouzeri^ a veri- 

 table little glutton, and one that will tackle scale of many 

 kinds. 



The Novius cardinalis^ or so-called Australian Lady- 

 bird, would, at least in the perfect state, appear to be 

 somewhat fastidious as to its food. For example, some 

 were sent to me by my friend Mr. A. Wight, of Paeroa, 

 New Zealand, and were tried by myself on a number of 

 different kinds of coccidse, including Eriococcus, Pulvin- 

 aria, and other kinds unprotected with a shield-like 

 covering; but although the little beetles would scamper 

 up and down the twigs on which I had placed the various 

 scale, they would not tackle them, even after I had 

 purposely kept them for some days without food, as an 

 exjDeriment to test their powers on coccids other than 

 Icerya. It would interest me to be able to ascertain 

 whether the insects whilst in the larval stage are equally 

 particular as to their natural food, and the puzzle has 

 been to many, myself included, as to why the Icerya 

 could exist and do so much damage in New Zealand, in 

 some parts of which, Mr. Wight informs me, the Novius 

 is to be found in enormous numbers. This would ap23ear 

 to me to be as yet an unsolved problem. 



Prevention and Remedies. 



We have now to deal with a pest on which all simple 

 remedies will if tried be comparatively wasted. We have 

 also to remember that this insect does not confine its 

 attention to orange and lemon trees, but it will attack 

 nearly anything and everything, as pine trees, Pitto- 

 sjDorums, and many kinds of trees and shrubs ; and it is 

 astonishing in what a short space of time they will 

 entirely destroy a Pittosporum hedge, the rapid increase 

 of an unchecked colony of these insects being something 

 alarming. 



