60 ASSOCIATION OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGISTS. 



accomplished its task of execution among the aphis here had not its 

 parasite (Centisfe.s' a/nericana Riley") unfortunately been introduced 

 with it. On his way to Australia, in 1S!)1, Mr. Koebele released in 

 Honolulu several specimens of C/iiloconis hiaulnerus Muls. Speci- 

 mens of these he observed, though in limited numbers, in 1894 and 

 1897. None was seen since. So nuich for economic insect work up 

 to the last decade of the last century. 



THE ADVENT OF MR. KOEBELE TO THESE ISLANDS. 



Although the sugar-cane industry was yearly growing more pros- 

 perous, the people of this Territory always feared the possible conse- 

 quences of dejoending Avholly upon a single industry. The continual 

 agitation for another industry, which, because of the geological 

 character of the islands, must be of an agricultural nature, always 

 brought into prominence now one thing, now another. In the early 

 nineties coffee growing was at the summit. Kona (so named from 

 the district on the island of Hawaii where it was grown) coffee had 

 acquired fame on the market for its exceedingly good flavor, and 

 everybody was planting coffee. No one took into account the preva- 

 lence of Pulvinaria jysidii Mask., which seems by that time to have 

 been an old inhabitant of the island. But the day of reckoning 

 was bound to come, and by 1892-1893 coffee fields were everywhere 

 literally white with this scale. Some strenuous measures were inevi- 

 table or the new pet industry was doomed. It was useless to attempt 

 to fight the pest with artificial means, because to every acre of culti- 

 vated coffee there are hundreds of acres overrun with wild guava, 

 and much coffee grows wild, like cotton in the Southern States. 



The Hawaiian sugar planters had by that time begun to learn the 

 value of securing the best to be had of what they needed. They were 

 ever, and still are, a set of progressive and aggressive men and the 

 guiding spirit in movements of the kind we are considering. Mr. 

 Koebele's work in the introduction of Vedalia was an inspiring illus- 

 tration to them of what could be accomplished by means of natural 

 enemies. And so they were determined to repeat the experiment of 

 the Californians and secure Mr. Koebele to carry it out for them. 

 Thus, conditions having attained a climax, the services of Mr. Koe- 

 bele, the chief exponent of the new school, were engaged in October, 

 1893. He began, very wisely, by first shipping to Hawaii consign- 

 ments of beneficial insects, native and introduced, from California. 

 These consignments included several species of Hyperaspis, one of 

 which, H. undulata Say, was observed some ten months later, though 

 never seen here again since then. Many scymnids also were intro- 

 duced, of which Scymnus debilis Lee, an enemy of Pseudococcus sp., 



a Now recognized as a synonym of Enphorus sculptus Say. — Ed. 



