620 



ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PRACTICAL HORTICULTURE 



sible to find them but for the maps previ- 

 ously made on the cards in the manner 

 already described. Provided with these 

 maps, our field men know just where to 

 look and lose no time. Their task, how- 

 ever, is difficult and laborious. 



Usually once a week a mule pack train 

 comes over the mountain trail to the 

 camp to bring supplies and to carry away 

 the sacks of beetles which have been 

 accumulated. By this means the insects 

 are conveyed to the nearest railway sta- 

 tion, which is a distance of about 12 

 miles, where a small building has been 

 rented and equipped as a packing house. 

 Here the crop is cleaned, put up in suit- 

 able packages, and made ready for the 

 long hibernation. 



Between the time that the field men 

 return from the preliminary location and 

 the time the real collecting begins, the 

 insectary force, assisted by the field men, 

 are busily engaged in making the ship- 

 ping crates. Each one is 13 inches long, 

 eight inches wide, and 12 inches deep, 

 covered on two sides with fine mesh wire 

 netting and loosely filled with dry, clean 

 excelsior. These receptacles are eventu- 

 ally to contain the ladybird crop, and 



<=-nica, <3ii:3^^ 



Fig. 13. The Golden Chalcid (Ai)ltelinus dias- 

 phlis Howard [Family Eulophidael ). The 

 adults are esceedinely small and delicate, 

 bright yellow insects. Common throughout 

 the south part o£ California, though it prob- 

 ably occurs in many central and northern 

 sections. Parasitic upon red scale (Chrysam- 

 phalus auiantiit and rose scale tAulacaspis 

 rosae ) . 



when completed they are shipped to the 

 packing house in the mountains. 



During the packing season one man is 

 left in charge of the packing house, who 

 attends to recleaning and resacking the 

 insects. He then proceeds with the next 

 step in the packing process, which is to 

 pour the bugs from the sacks into an 

 ingenious machine which counts them: 

 they are counted, that is to say, by meas- 

 urement. Dropping into a sort of hopper, 

 made of tin and glass, they are measured 

 as they pass through this machine (which 

 is operated by a system of slides) into 

 the shipping crates before mentioned. 



Fig. 1'-. .\ I'ullect.ir Coming into Camp with 

 a Day's Catch. Each collector carries a 

 sieve and wears rubber boots to keep out 

 the snow. 



Fig. 14. The Two Stabbed Ladybird Beetle 

 (Chiloconis biridnerus Muls). The adults 

 are broadly oval and about three-sixteenths 

 of an incti long. The color is shiny black 

 with two round blood-red spots upon the 

 wing covers. The extreme margins of the 

 prothorax are pale. The under side of the 

 abdomen is red. The larvae are very shiny, 

 dark in color, with a yellow tranverse band 

 across the middle. This is one of the na- 

 tive ladybird beetles and is to be found in 

 almost every part of California. The larvae 

 and adults are voracious feeders upon the 

 San Jose scale (Aspiiliotun pcrniciosus), 

 young of the black scale (Saissetia olcac), 

 inealy bugs < Pseudococcus cUri and P. lonn- 

 ispinus), oyster shell scale {Lepidosaphcs 

 ulmi), European elm scale (Gosst/paria 

 spuna^ and other scale insects. 



