WHOLE VOL. APPLIED ENTOMOLOGY HOWARD 509 



importations into California, and also concerning his importations 

 into Western Australia. It may be mentioned here that after Com- 

 pere's announced finding of fruit-fly parasites in Brazil and their 

 importation into Australia, Lounsbury and Fuller, from South Africa, 

 went to Brazil and failed to substantiate the published statements made 

 by Compere. There are also other matters which cannot be mentioned 

 in such a consideration as we shall be able to give the matter, but 

 what follows is offered as a necessarily incomplete historical effort. 



ALGERIA 



The introduction of a predatory wasp into Algeria in 1908 is men- 

 tioned in Doctor Trouvelot's list ; but something more should be said 

 about it, as it is really of a unique character. There was, and perhaps 

 still is, a disease of the dromedary camels in Algeria, then the principal 

 beasts of burden in that country. The Pasteur Institute of Paris, 

 having a branch at Algiers, investigated the disease and found it to be 

 caused by a Spirochaete. The brothers Sergent, in charge of the 

 investigation, discovered that this Spirochaete was carried by certain 

 gadflies. They further discovered that these gadflies were killed off 

 by certain robber flies but that the robber flies were not active at the 

 exact period when the gadflies were most abundant. At the advice of 

 Dr. E. Roux, Director of the Pasteur Institute at Paris, Dr. E. Sergent 

 consulted the Federal Bureau of Entomology at Washington. At 

 Washington we immediately recalled the fact that in the southern 

 United States there is a large wasp known down there to the people 

 as " the horse guard," well known to be an active destroyer of gadflies. 

 Dr. Wilmon Newell, then stationed at Shreveport, Louisiana, as an 

 official of that State, was consulted. He found a place on the shore 

 of the Gulf not far from New Orleans where this wasp (Monedula 

 Carolina) was nesting. Their burrows were dug up, and in the pupa 

 stage they were placed in especially prepared buckets and put in charge 

 of one of the stewards in the cold room of a steamer going directly 

 from New Orleans to Havre. There they were met by agents of the 

 Pasteur Institute and were carried directly to Algeria. Exact descrip- 

 tions of the topography of the American breeding-places, together 

 with photographs showing exposure and so on, were sent with the 

 specimens. A similar locality was selected on the south coast of the 

 Mediterranean, and subsequently some of the wasps issued ; but, so 

 far as has been reported, the species has never again been seen over 

 there. The length of the journey from Havre to Algiers (almost 15 

 days actually) was probably too great for the survival of the majority 



