172 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 9 



ON THE HAWAIIAN WORK IN INTRODUCING BENE- 

 FICIAL INSECTS 



By L. 0. Howard 



There have been several efforts in the past few years to bring 

 together some account of the experiments in different parts of the 

 world with the practical use of the natural enemies of injurious insects. 

 Probably the first of these was contained in the writer's paper on 

 "The Economic Status of Insects as a Class," the address of the 

 retiring President of the Biological Society of Washington, January 18^ 

 1899, afterwards published in Science, new series, IX, No, 216, pp. 

 233-247, February 17, 1899, and afterwards repubhshed in the Annual 

 Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1898, pp. 551-569 (Washing- 

 ton, 1900). The second was probably the writer's paper presented 

 before the Massachusetts Horticultural Society January 13, 1906, 

 and published in the Transactions of that Society for 1906, Part I, 

 pp. 11-19 (author's abstract, Boston, October, 1896). 



In 1907 was published Paul Marchal's important paper entitled 

 "Utilisation des Insectes Auxiliaires Entomophages dans la Lutte 

 contre les Insectes nuisibles a I'Agriculture," which appeared in the 

 Annals of the National Agronomical Institution (Superior School of 

 Agriculture), Part II, Vol. VI of the Second Series, pp. 281-354. 

 The writer translated this paper, and it was published in Popular 

 Science Monthly, Vol. LXXII, April and May, 1908, pp. 352-370 

 and 406-419. In this admirable summary, Marchal mentioned the 

 work of the importation of the natural enemies of the sugar cane leaf- 

 hopper by the Sugar Planters' Association of Hawaii, but was appar- 

 ently uninformed at that time as to the success or non-success of the 

 work. 



In the following year, 1908, Dr. F. Silvestri visited the United 

 States and Hawaii, and in 1909 published in the Bulletin of the Society 

 of Italian Agriculturists another important summary, included in his 

 account of his investigations, under the title "Sguardo alio State 

 attuale dell'Entomologia Agraria negli Stati-Uniti del Nord America 

 e Ammsestramenti che possono derivarne per L'Agricoltura Italiana." 

 A translation of a large portion of this will be found in the Hawaiian 

 Forester and Agriculturist for August, 1909 (Vol. VII, No. 8). Having 

 spent a month on the Hawaiian Islands in intimate association with 

 the entomologists at the Sugar Planters' station, Silvestri was able to 

 give a rather full account of the work done there, and praised it highly. 



A later general summary of the world work of this kind will be 

 found in the first 46 pages of Bulletin 91 of the Bureau of Entomology, 



