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described in newspapers and magazines as the " saviour of the apple-grower." 

 We could throw away our squirts and spray-pots, or send them to the lumber- 

 room, said the American newspaper man. 



The officers of the Horticultural Commission sent out thousands of speci- 

 mens, and published glowing accounts of its work ; yet in Spain it was 

 unknown, and of no value in destroying codling moth ; and at the time it 

 was being written about in the newspapers it had not killed one codling 

 moth grub in the orchards of California. It has now had several years to 

 show what it can do, and, if we are to judge from the statements in the 

 horticultural newspapers, it has clone absolutely nothing outside the msectarium 

 at the Commissioner's office in San Francisco. 



In the official report of the Thirty-fourth Fruit-growers' Convention of the 

 State of California, held at Riverside last May (1908), Mr. S. A. Pease, 

 Horticultural Commissioner for San Bernardino, in a paper on " Parasites and 

 the State Insectary," says : "The introduced parasite for the wide-spread 

 enemy of the apple-grower, the codling moth (Carpocapsa pomonella), is 

 Caliephialtes messer. It works well in confinement, when supplied with 

 larvse or cocoons of the moth ; but, after a number of years' trial in the 

 orchards, has no friends to sound its praises." 



Speaking of the breeding of several native parasites of codling moth 

 in Cape Colony, Mr. C. P. Lounsbury, Government Entomologist, in his 

 report for 1907, says: "Professor Koebele, an insect pollector of international 

 reputation, has told the writer that he has reared six different parasites from 

 tin- < )dling moth in California, yet in that country it is about as necessary to 

 spray to save apples and p?ars from the pest as it in the infested parts of the 

 Cape Colony ; and spraying will probably continue to be deemed necessary, 

 notwithstanding all the parasites that may be found and introduced. Con- 

 siderable interest was aroused at the Cape about two years ago over the 

 alleged success of a parasite (Caliephialtes messer) introduced into California 

 from Spain by Mr. George Compere. While in America last year the writer 

 inquired about this insect. It breeds very well in confinement, and has 

 been distributed to various parts of the State ; but it is exaggeration to;;ay that 

 it has yet proved of any practical value, or that it has given evidence that 

 it will." 



This is the parasite that each of theGovernments of the Australian States were 

 asked to pay 1,000 for the privilege of receiving from the Commissioner rf 

 Hortieultuiv of California, and the New South Wales Department of Agricul- 

 ture was severely criticised by the fruit-growers and newspaper correspondents 

 for not accepting the offer. 



llesides the larva of a small soldier beetle, which gets under the bandages 

 and devours a few codling moth grubs, I have described four well defined 

 codling moth parasites which infest the larva- and pup*e ; and there are 

 several other i.yrnenopterous parasites that we have bred in small numbers, 

 but none of them are numerous enough to make an appreciable difference to 

 the codling moth pest. The most promising is Goniozus antipodum, a little 

 proctotrupid wasp that was described by Westwood, from Adelaide, in 1874 ; 

 and. though it has been rediscovered there a^iin last year, is still a rare 

 insect after thirty y-ai .-' existence among the apple orchards. 



We have only to study the life history of the oodling moth to understand 

 how it has managed to exist, propagate, and hold its own for at least the last 

 thousand years as an apple pf-st. The tiny e_-^, too insignificant for the 

 ordinary e*;^ parasitic hymenoptera, is not long in danger, for as soon as the 

 tiny grub is hatched it burrows into the fruit away from danger; .there it 

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