Masterpieces of Science 



ladybird became the ancestor of 75,000,000,000 

 of other ladybirds, each capable of destroying 

 very many scale insects. 



Is it any wonder, then, that the fluted scales 

 soon began to disappear? Is it any wonder 

 that orchard after orchard was 

 entirely freed from the pest, until 

 now over a large section of the 

 State hardly an Icerya is to be 

 found? And could a more strik- 

 ing illustration of the value of the 

 study of insects possibly be in- 

 stanced? In less than a year 

 from the time when the first of 

 these hungry Australians was 

 liberated from his box in Los 

 Angeles the orange trees were once 

 more in bloom and were resuming 

 their old-time verdure — the Icerya 

 had become practically a thing of 

 the past. 



This wonderfdl saccess encour- 

 aged other efforts in the same 

 direction. . The State of California 

 some years later sent the same 

 entomologist, Koebele, to Aus- 

 tralia to search for some insect 

 enemy of the black scale, an insect 

 which threatened the destruction of the ex- 

 tensive olive orchards of California. He found 

 and successfully introduced another ladybird 

 beetle, known as Rhizobius ventralis, a little 

 128 



Twig of olive 

 infected with 

 Black Scale 



