24 PARASITES OF GIPSY AND BROWN-TAIL MOTHS. 



to the effect that if any member of the society should be able to find 

 parasitized midges he should send them to Dr. Fitch. 



Nothing ever came of this effort, but it is of interest on account of 

 its apparent priority over other experimentation of this kind. 



The next international attempt seems to have been made in 1873, 

 when Planchon and Riley introduced into France an American 

 predatory mite ( Tyroglyphus phylloxerse, Riley) which feeds on the 

 grapevine Phylloxera in the United States. The mite became estab- 

 lished, but accomplished no appreciable results in the way of checking 

 the famous grapevine pest. 



In 1874 efforts were made to send certain parasites of plant lice 

 from England to New Zealand, but without results of value, although 

 Coccinella undecimpunctata L. is said to have become established. 



In 1883 Riley imported the braconid Apanteles glomeratus into the 

 United States from Europe, where it is an abundant enemy of the 

 imported cabbage worm (Pontia rapx L.). This species has since 

 established itself in the United States and has proved a valuable 

 addition to the North American fauna. 



The Australian Ladybird (Novius Cardinalis Muls.) in the United States. 



But all previous experiments of this nature were completely over- 

 shadowed by the remarkable success of the importation of ( Vedalia) 

 Novius cardinalis Muls. (fig. 4), a coccinellid beetle, or ladybird, 

 from Australia into California in 1889. The orange and lemon groves 

 of California had for some years been threatened with extinction by 

 the injurious work of the fluted or cottony cushion scale (Icerya pur- 

 chasi Mask.) a large scale insect which the careful investigations of 

 Prof. Riley and his force of entomologists at the United States 

 Department of Agriculture had shown to have been originally 

 imported, by accident, from Australia or from New Zealand, where it 

 had originally been described by the New Zealand coccidologist, the 

 late W. M. Maskell. The Division of Entomology had been for several 

 years engaged in an active campaign against this insect, and had dis- 

 covered washes which could be applied at a comparatively slight ex- 

 pense and which would destroy the scale insect. It had also in the 

 course of its investigations discovered the applicability of hydrocyanic- 

 acid gas under tents as a method of fumigating orchards and destroy- 

 ing the scale. The growers, however, had become so thoroughly dis- 

 heartened by the ravages of the insect that they were no longer in a 

 frame of mind to use even the cheap insecticide washes, and many of 

 them were destroying their groves. In the meantime, through some 

 correspondence in the search for the original home of the scale insect, 

 Prof. Riley had discovered that while the species occurred in parts of 

 Australia it was not injurious in those regions. In New Zealand it 



