PREVIOUS WORK WITH INSECT PARASITES. 39 



In California this ichneumon fly has been reared with great success 

 and lias been sent out in large numbers from the headquarters of the 

 State board of horticulture. In the field, however, it is apparently not 

 succeeding, and there" is no evidence that the numbers of the codling 

 moth have been at all reduced by it. Nor is it, according to Froggatt, 

 effective in Spain. 



Mr. Compere has collected many beneficial species attacking many 

 different injurious insects. He is an indefatigable worker, and his 

 untiring qualities and his refusal to accept failure are well shown in 

 his search for the natural enemies of the fruit fly of Western Australia, 

 Ceratitis capitata Wied. He visited the Philippine Islands, China, 

 Japan, California, Spain, returning to Australia, afterwards visiting 

 Ceylon and India, and subsequently Brazil. In Brazil he succeeded 

 in finding an ichneumon fly and a staphylinid beetle feeding upon 

 fruit-fly larvae. He collected some numbers and carried them to 

 Australia in living condition, prematurely reporting success. The 

 fruit fly is a pest in South Africa, and following the announcement of 

 Compere's importations Claude Fuller and C. P. Lounsbury pro- 

 ceeded from Africa to Brazil to get the same parasites. The result of 

 this journey was discouraging. They did not find the predatory 

 staphylinid, but obtained a braconid parasite, Opiellus trimaculatus 

 Spin. ; they also concluded from information gained that the fruit fly 

 had been introduced into South America more recently than into South 

 Africa. The material carried home died. Compere left Australia 

 again about the close of 1904; went to Spain for more codling-moth 

 parasites, and then went on to Brazil, collecting more fruit-fly para- 

 sites and carrying them to Australia. The Brazilian natural enemies, 

 however, did not succeed, and in 1906 he proceeded to India to collect 

 parasites of a related fly of the genus Dacus, finding several and tak- 

 ing them to Western Australia. He arrived, however, in the middle 

 of winter, and the insects perished. In May, 1907, once more this 

 indefatigable man returned to India, and in a few months collected 

 70,000 to 100,000 parasitized pupae, and brought them to Perth, 

 Western Australia, in good condition on the 7th of December. It is 

 reported that the parasites issued from this material in great numbers 

 and in three distinct species. In April, 1908, it was reported that 

 120,000 parasites had been obtained and distributed, 20,000 of them 

 having been sent to South Africa. The writer has not seen any 

 definite reports of success in the control of the fruit fly by these para- 

 sites, but surely Compere deserves great credit for his efforts. 



Work with the Egg Parasite of the Elm Leaf-beetle. 



In 1905 Dr. Paul Marchal, of Paris, published in the Bulletin of the 

 Entomological Society of France for February 22 a paper entitled 

 "Biological observations on a parasite of the elm leaf-beetle/' to 



