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broods may l)o counted on, the third ])rood in our own breeding cages 

 being under way in the latter part of June. Whether this hidybird 

 enemy of the San Jose scale will really amount to anj'thing as an effi- 

 cient means of controlling this pest remains to be demonstrated. The 

 San Jose scale is its normal and natural food. It multiplies rapidly, 

 and a larval Chilocorus destroys an enormous number of young scale 

 larv« in a day, by actual count 1,500 per da_v or about one a minute, 

 but while actively feeding at the rate of 5 or 6 a minute. The main 

 question to be decided is whether this insect can be successfully estab- 

 lished in this country, and if so, whether our native predaceous insects 

 will allow it to yield the full benefit which it should give in keeping 

 down the San Jose scale. We make no extravagant claims, but l^elieve 

 that the experiment is well worth trying, whatever may be the 

 outcome. ^^ 



It has been suggested that this ladybird is the same as our native 

 species, Chilocovxis hmulnerus, and, in fact, the superficial resemblance 

 of the adults of the two species is so close that the greatest difficulty 

 will be found in distinguishing them. The larvae of the two species, 

 however, are distinctly different in general appearance. The Asiatic 

 has the skin of a reddish or flesh tint, the spines being black but less 

 prominent than in our native species. The skin of our native species 

 is a dull gray, and the general appearance of the larva, therefore, is 

 decidedly black or dark, whereas the imported species, Avhen full fed, 

 is reddish. Furthermore, there are structural differences in the spines 

 and hairs which will enable one readily to separate them irrespective 

 of the difference in appearance, which is very striking. The beetles 

 also can be separated, as I am assured by Mr. E. A. Schwarz, although 

 careful anatomical and structural studies have not been made at this 

 writing. The imported species is notalJy smaller on the average than 

 our native species, and rather more brilliantl}'^ colored, and differs a 

 little perhaps in the general shape or convexity of the wings and 

 thorax. Furthermore, it feeds on the San Jose scale and the Diaspis 

 naturally and normally. Our species, while it is often found in scale- 

 infested orchards in the East, has never done very much good in the 

 orchards, and does not feed and nuiltiply on the scale in the way that 

 it ought. For example, in the grounds of the Department of Agri- 

 culture this year we have a little orchard of pear trees thickly infested 

 with the San Jose scale — the orchard in which we are establishing this 

 foreign ladybird — and yet in all the time during the spring and early 



«It may be added to the above that during the balance of the summer this beetle 

 did very well in the little Department grove. About a thousand beetles were dis- 

 tributed to various entomologists, from some of whom reports of considerable success 

 have already been received. In Washington breeding seemed to stop toward the 

 end of September, but we now have more than 2,000 beetles which will be over- 

 wintered Next year we should have them in quantities for general distribution. 



