PARASITES FOR IXSECT PESTS. 13 



■common European parasite (Apanteles gloinerafus) of the im])orted 

 cabbage worm from England into the United States. It has since 

 established itself in this country and is a valuable aid in cabbage 

 culture. 



All previous experiments were completely overshadowed by 

 the remarkable results of the importation of Novius {Vedalia) 

 cardinalis, a ladybird, from Australia into California in 1889. 

 For three years beginning with 1886, Professor Riley, then Ento- 

 xnologist of the Department of Agriculture, had recommended 

 to the authorities in Washington that an effort be made to study 

 the natural enemies of the scale in Australia and to introduce 

 them into California, since he had determined by correspondence 

 that Australia was the original home of the species and that on 

 that continent the scale was not especially injurious. California 

 fruit growers petitioned Congress to the same effect. Finally, 

 during the winter of 1887-88, the Secretary of State, at the request 

 of the Commissioner of Agriculture and of Professor Riley and 

 of Mr. Frank McCoppin, of California, Commissioner-General 

 to the Melbourne Exposition, appropriated funds for this purpose; 

 and an assistant in the Division of Entomology, IMr. Albert Koebele, 

 was sent to Australia on the jNIelbourne Exposition fund. He 

 found the famous ladybird, Vedalia cardinalis, in North Adelaide, 

 and made several sendings to southern California where the insects 

 were cared for by another assistant in the Division of Entomology, 

 U. S. Department of Agriculture, jNIr. D. W. Coquillett. In less 

 than a year, on Californian soil, the ladybird had multiplied so 

 extensively as to practically destroy the fluted scale and to reduce 

 it to a condition where it Avas no longer a factor in the cultivation 

 of oranges and lemons. The same insect was later introduced 

 from California into New Zealand and into Portugal and into 

 Egypt, with similar striking results. In 1893 !Mr. Koebele resigned 

 from the Department of Agriculture and AAas employed by the 

 State Board of Horticulture of California to proceed again to 

 Australia and other points in a general search for beneficial insects. 

 He made extensive trips and imported a number of beneficial 

 insects into California, one of which, a ladybird known as Rhizo- 

 bius veyitralis, proved to be of value in reducing the numbers of 

 the black scale in such pqrtions of California as were near the 



