CALIFORNIA STATE COMMISSION OF HORTICULTURE. 



complemental female lays only a few eggs, it requires several to take 

 the place of a real queen. 



"All white ants are miners, and avoid the light. They build covered 

 ways wherever they wish to go. In hot countries they are a terrible 

 pest, as they feed upon wood, and actually destroy buildings and furni- 

 ture and libraries. They leave merely the outside portion of what they 

 feed upon; and they have been known to enter a table through the 

 bottom of the legs and to eat all the inner portions so that a slight 

 weight crushed it to the floor. In Florida they do damage to orange 

 and other trees by girdling them below the surface of the ground." 



Order Corpodentia (Book-lice, etc.). These are tiny creatures, some- 

 what resembling the termites in appearance, only one family of which, 

 the Psocids, are found in the United States. They are general scaven- 

 gers and receive their common name of book-lice from the fact that 

 they are sometimes found in libraries, attacking old and unused books. 

 They are found in great numbers in many of our orchards, where they 

 congregate in colonies. They lay their eggs in heaps on leaves and 

 branches, and cover them with a web, giving vegetation a dirty appear- 

 ance, as the dust finds lodgment on these webs. The dry climate of 

 California is especially favorable to their propagation, but, aside from 

 the fact that they give our trees a dirty appearance, they are of no 

 importance to us from an economic standpoint. 



Order Malophaga. This order has been erected for the bird-lice. 

 We have alluded to these insects before, and little more need be said of 

 them. They infest birds and sometimes are also found on animals, 



being known by the name " wool- 

 eaters," which was given them be- 

 cause some species are found on 

 sheep and goats. They are fur- 

 nished with r mandibulate jaws, 

 and are, therefore, biting and not 

 sucking insects. In this they differ 

 from the true lice, which are suck- 



ers. Their 

 complete. 



metamorphosis is 



in- 



FIG. 58. Pear-thrips (Euthrips pyri). 

 enlarged. 



Order Physopoda (Thrips). 

 This is a small order of very small 

 Greatly i nse cts which has had a deal of 

 trouble in getting located. Ento- 

 mologists have located it in the Hemiptera, the Orthoptera, and the 

 Neuroptera. Finally a "Thysanoptera" was created to take care of it, 

 and now it has come to be known as Physopoda. Whatever the name 



