468 REPORT OP THE COMMISSIONER OP AGRICULTURE. 



IMPORTATION OP THE SPECIES INTO CALIFORNIA. 



The first printed record, with which we are acquainted, of the occur- 

 rence of the Cottony Cushion-scale in California is Mr. Stretch's 

 article in the P»oceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, 

 Vol. IV, read September 16, 1872. In ojDening this paper he refers 

 to the fact that " at a former meeting certain insects forwarded to 

 this society from Menlo Park, San Mateo County, by Mr. Gordon," 

 were referred to him for examination. A careful search through 

 the previous proceedings fails to show any mention of this previous 

 sending, though at the meeting of July 1, 1872, Mr, John Hewston, 

 jr., "exhibited some limbs of Australian Acacia from San Mateo 

 which were infested by a species of Coccus, and stated that the insect 

 had not only been detected in its depredations upon said tree, but 

 also upon the orange trees." This latter reference may very possibly 

 have been to the Cottony Cushion-scale, and if so it is interesting, as 

 indicating already a spread of some miles from Menlo Park. 



All the slight evidence possessed points to the introduction of this 

 scale on Australian Acacia by Mr. George Gordon about 1868 or 1869. 

 Mr. Stretch says: 



This being all the information to be derived from the specimens referred to me, I 

 visited Menlo Park in search of further information, and received a very hearty vrel- 

 come from Mr. Gordon. The supposition is that the insect was imported from Aus- 

 tralia some three years ago; at any rate ii seemed to originate on the Acacia latifolia. 



This was evidently Mr. Gordon's suj^position, and the plain infer- 

 ence is that about three years previous to this time certain Acacias had 

 been imported by Mr. Gordon from Australia as plants or cuttings 

 contrary to the general custom, although it is not stated in so many 

 words. 

 Dr. A. W. Saxe, of Santa Clara, Cal., in 1877, wrote:* 

 "So far as I can ascertain, it was brought to California on some 



?lants imported from Australia by the late George Gordon, of Menlo 

 *ark (the sugar refiner)." 



In the introduction to our annual report as Entomologist to this 

 Department for 1878 we referred to the serious complaints that came 

 from the Pacific coast of injury by it to orchard and ornamental trees, 

 and from specimens received from Dr. Saxe (Mr. Maskell's papers 

 being unknown here then) referred it to the genus Dorthesia, and 

 remarked: 



It is an Australian insect, and has of late years been introduced on Australian 

 plants into South Africa, where, as I learn from one of my correspondents, Mr. 

 Roland Trimen, curator of the South African Museum, it has multipUed at a ter- 

 rible rate, and become such a scourge as to attract the attention of the government. 

 It has evidently been introduced (probably on the Blue Gum or Eucahjptus) to Cali- 

 fornia, either direct from Australia or from South Africa, and will doubtless become 

 quite a scourge; because most introduced insects are brought over without the 

 natural enemies which keep them in check in their native country and consequently 

 multiply at a prodigious rate. It will be naturally partial to Australian tfees, and 

 shows a preference for Acacia, Eucalyptus, Orange, Eose, Privet, and Sj)ti-a3a. 



Professor Comstock, in the Annual Report of the Department of 

 Agriculture for 1880, ]). 348, cited this article of Dr. Saxe's as the 

 earliest article with which he was acquainted, and repeated Dr. Saxe's 

 opinion as to the introduction of the insect. 



Beyond this we are able to get no information upon the subject, and 

 these data are in all probability the first connected with the introduc- 

 tion of the Cottony Cushion-scale. There may j)ossibly have been 



* California Agriculturist and Artisan, Decemberj 1877. 



