190 



I firmly believe what I wrote in my last annual report as United States 

 Eutomolgist, viz : 



We may hardly hope, however, that the last chapter iu the story is written. On 

 the contrary, it is more than probable, and in fact we strongly anticipate that the 

 Icerya will partially recuperate ; that the Vedalia will, after its first victorious 

 spread, gradually decrease for lack of food, and that the remnants of the Fluted 

 Scale will in the interim multiply and spread again. This contest between the 

 plant-feeder and its deadliest enemy will go on with alternate fluctuations in the 

 supremacy of either, varying from year to year according to locality or conditions; 

 but there is no reason to doubt that the Vedalia will continue substantially victori- 

 ous, and that the power for serious harm, such as the Icerya has done in tbe past, has 

 been forever destroyed. We have learned, also, that it will always be easy to secure 

 new colonizations of the Vedalia where such may prove necessary, or even new im- 

 portations should these become desirable. 



During the year I have endeavored to return the favors received 

 from Australia and New Zealand by sending there some of the natural 

 enemies of the Codling Moth, and from last accounts, though jeopard- 

 ized by the action of the customhouse authorities, the experiment prom- 

 ised success so far as a species of Raphidia from California is con- 

 cerned. 1 have also endeavored to introduce some of the parasites which 

 attack the Hessian Fly in Europe, and which do not yet occur in this 

 country. These eflbrts have been made by correspondence, for you will 

 be surprised to learn that the restrictive clause in the appropriations to 

 the Department of Agriculture for entomological work, which limits 

 traveling expenses to the United States, is still maintained in the face 

 of the Vedalia experience, where by the expenditure of $1,500 uiany 

 millions were saved. The maintenance of this restricting clause iu the 

 last appropriation bill, under these circumstances, is a travesty on leg- 

 islative wisdom, and all the more remarkable because done by the Sen- 

 ate in opposition to the House and the recommendatious of both the 

 Secretary and Assistant Secretary of Agriculture. 



While there is much to be done in this direction in future I can not 

 let this occasion pass without giving a note of warning. Success will 

 only come in any particular case when exact knowledge is first obtained 

 and the most thorough scientific methods are then adopted ; and we 

 can not too severely condemn everything that savors of bunkum and 

 ignorance. During the year the press of the country has promiuently 

 heralded the fact that a gentleman from San Francisco, especially 

 charged to study certain entomological matters in the East, found, 

 while in Washington, the Two-spotted Ladybird (Coccinella bipunctata) 

 feeding on "the Aphis" right under the windows of the Division of 

 Entomology of the Department of Agriculture, the inference intended 

 being that the entomologist and his assistants were ignorant of the cir- 

 cumstance. Indeed a writer in one of the California papers of recent 

 date announced this discovery under the sensational heading "Another 

 good bug — the Woolly Aphis has found its Sedan." How supremely 

 ridiculous this sort of thing appears to the well-informed entomologist 



