98 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 



at hand, accomplished more than any one else in making it a success. We will let Mr. 

 Howard tell the story of his success, with the efficient aid of Mr. Albert Koebele, in 

 introducing the Australian ladybird to fight the fluted scale : 



" One other trait which we have not mentioned is his persistency in overcoming obstacles. Nothing 

 daunts him, and the more difficult an end is to attain, so much the more energy and perseverance does he 

 put in its pursuit. A recent instance of this quality we may cite : The fluted scale {Icerya purchasi Mas- 

 kell) has done immense injury to citrus fruit in southern California of late years. Ascertaining that it is 

 kept in check by natural enemies in its native home, Australia, Dr. Riley foresaw the importance of en- 

 deavoring to introduce these enemies. Not only did Congress refuse to appropriate money for the purpose, 

 but it refused to do away with a clause in the Appropi'iation Bill restricting all expenditures to the United 

 States. In this state of affairs most men would have given up the fight ; but })r. Riley, after great trouble, 

 succeeded in accomplishing his end by inducing the Secretary of State to allow the sending of two assist- 

 ants on the Melbourne Exposition Commission, and through their labors the desired result was reached. 

 Hundreds of specimens of an Australian lay-bird [Vedalia cariUnalis) were introduced into California, and 

 the dreaded pest is now being speedily reduced to absolute harmlessness. Professor W. A. Henry, of Wis- 

 consin, in a recently-published article, says of this matter, in speaking of the enthusiasm of the pe9ple of 

 California over the results of this importation : ' Without doubt it is the best stroke ever made by the Agri- 

 cultural Department at Washington.'" 



It might be thought that all this administrative work of the office and in the field 

 would have left little time for pure science or for much general reading or deep thinking. 

 Let us see what he actually did accomplish in pure science. Riley's scientific writings 

 will always stand, and show as honest work, thorough-going methods, care and accuracy 

 as his office work, and they alone, aside from his practical work, were enough to give him 

 an international reputation. In some of his studies he was probably essentially indebted 

 to his assistants for specimens and aid in rearing them ; in others he evidently depended 

 on his own unaided observations and his skill in drawing. He was not " a species man " 

 or systematist as such ; on the contrary his most important work was on the transform- 

 ations and habits of insects, such as those of the lepidoptera, locusts and their parasites, 

 his Missouri reports being packed with facts new to science. His studies on the chron- 

 ology of all the broods known of the seventeen-year cicada, and its tredecim or thirteen- 

 year race, carried on through a long succession of years, will prove of lasting value, hav- 

 ing intimate bearings on evolution problems. 



His work on the larval characters and hypermetamorphoses of the blister beetles, 

 Epicauta, Macrobasis and Hernia, besides Henous, was thoroughly good and beautifully 

 illustrated by his own pencil. He brings forward in this paper a mass of new facts re- 

 garding the triungulin, or first larval stage of these beetles, and those succeeding, which 

 he designates as the Carabidoid, the Scarabseidoid stage, the Coarctate or quiescent larva, 

 these stages preceding the pupa stage. The value of these facts as set forth by so trust- 

 worthy and keen an observer, and corroborating and greatly extending those worked out 

 by European observers, is apparent when we consider that the triungulin larva is perhaps 

 the nearest approach to the Campodea-like ancestor of the winged insects, that the 

 MeloidjB are consequently among the most primitive and generalized of Ooleoptera, and 

 that from work based on such studies as these of the life-history of this and allied groups 

 there has already resulted the germs of a truer phylogeny or classification of the entire 

 order of Ooleoptera. Of similar import are Riley's papers on the larval habits of bee-flies, 

 on the luminous larviform females of the Phengodini and on the first larval stage of the 

 pea-weevil (Bruchus). His studies on the systematic relations of Platypsyllus as deter- 

 mined by the larva evince his patience, accuracy and keenness in observation and his 

 philosophic breadth. 



For over twenty years he made observations on the fertilization of Yucca by those 

 remarkable tineoid moths, Pronuba and Prodoxus, and from time to time published papers 

 and notices of progress in his work which culminated in his paper entitled, " The Yucca 

 Moth and Yucca Pollination" (1891-'92), a memoir remarkable for the patient, unremit- 

 ting work carried on during his spare hours, its thoroughness in dealing with structural 

 details, its critical accuracy, and for its faithful and artistic drawings. It is a paper of 

 interest to botanists as well as zoologists, and of value to the student of evolution. One 

 of his last papers was a continuation and resum^ of this subject, entitled "Some Inter- 

 relations of Plants and Insects " (1892). 



