INSECT CONTROL 317 



prepared ; three of them were filled with material parasitised 

 with Prospaltella, and each of the other two cases contained 

 about one hundred and fifty specimens of the ladybird 

 Cryptognatha in the larval and pupal stages. After a sea 

 voyage extending over a month, New York was reached, 

 and four days later the Wardian cases and their contents 

 were ensconsed in the Government laboratory at Orlando. 

 An examination showed that twenty-eight ladybirds and 

 eight adult Prospaltella had survived the journey, an 

 alarmingly small number certainly, but one that did not 

 deter the Government entomologists from hoping that they 

 would be able to form from them a large and prosperous 

 colony. 



This was in December, with winter conditions differing 

 in no small degree from those in India. The first problem 

 was how to carry the parasites through the winter should 

 they be artificially forced or allowed to pass through the 

 winter in a normal state of hibernation. The latter course 

 was decided upon with all the insects except a few lady- 

 birds, and the result at the end of the year two ladybirds 

 only were still alive, all the other transported insects had 

 perished. As the survivors ultimately turned out to be of 

 the same sex, a magnificent effort, magnificently carried 

 out, in the cause of economic entomology ended, for the 

 time being, at the death of the last surviving ladybird. 

 One adds " for the time being " advisedly, for it is certain 

 that, if the economic entomologists on the other side of the 

 " herring pond " consider that the discoveries already made 

 can be put to commercial account, they will eventually 

 devise some means by which the apparently insuperable 

 difficulties of transport can be overcome. At any rate, a 

 very important step has been made by the discovery of 

 both a predaceous and parasitic parasite of the citrus white 

 fly, and although it is probable that the climate of India, 

 rather than the parasite, renders the white fly compara- 

 tively innocuous in that country, there appears no reason 



