44 PARASITES OP GIPSY AND BROWN-TAIL MOTHS. 



punctured by a fly." The statement that nature controls the 

 destructive fruit flies in India he opposes, as a result of his own 

 observations in India. He does not contend that this work has not 

 a great practical value, but insists that it should be done by trained 

 entomologists, and that full information of the habits and life his- 

 tories of both the pests and their parasites should be understood 

 before liberation is attempted. As already stated, he especially 

 deprecates premature claims, and points out that in New South 

 Wales the passage of the very necessary vegetation diseases bill was 

 delayed for some years by the outcry "Why should we be made to 

 clean up our orchards and spend money, when the department can 

 send out to other countries and get us parasites that will do all that 

 is needed?" In conclusion he states: 



Let the whole question be judged on its results. Allow that one or two experiments 

 have shown perfect results; yet because mealy bugs or scale insects in a restricted 

 locality have once or twice been destroyed by parasites, that can be no reason why 

 the parasite cure alone should be forced upon anyone. Its admirers should be 

 perfectly honest; and if a friendly introduced insect from which, rightly or wrongly, 

 great things had been expected turns out upon further trial to be a failure, they should 

 say so; and they should never proclaim results for a parasite till those results have 

 actually been proved in its adopted country, for the wisest can never be sure of the 

 results of any experiment. Economic entomology is a great commercial science, 

 and those at work for its far-reaching interests could do it no greater harm than by 

 misleading or unproved statements. 



Other Work of this Kind. 



Reference has already been made to the importations of Prospal- 

 tella berlesei into Italy to attack the destructive mulberry scale, 

 Diaspis pentagona, through cooperative arrangements between the 

 senior author and Prof. Berlese, of Florence. Prof. Berlese has been 

 successful in establishing the species, and believes that it is best to rely 

 upon this species only, and not to attempt to introduce the predatory 

 enemies of the scale, his idea being that coccinellids will feed indis- 

 criminately upon parasitized and unparasitized scales and that thus 

 the Prospaltella will not have a chance to multiply to its limit. The 

 contrary view is taken by Prof. Silvestri, at Portici, in the south of 

 Italy, and he has been making every effort to introduce from all parts 

 of the world all of the enemies, whether parasitic or predatory, of the 

 mulberry scale. He has brought over and has had breeding in his 

 laboratory at Portici, as well as in an experimental olive orchard 

 southeast of Naples, a number of species of Coccinellidse brought from 

 different parts of the world. At his request, in May, 1910, the senior 

 author carried from Washington a box containing possibly 200 living 

 specimens of Microweisia misella Lee. and a few specimens of Chilo- 

 corus bivulnerus Muls. These were carefully packed with plenty of 

 food in a small paper-covered wooden box, approximating a 10-inch 

 cube. He sailed from New York direct to Naples and, through the 



