78 



We have, therefore, as the original home of this insect a naturally 

 shut-off area from which it could not easily escape under the conditions 

 prevailing up to our own times. 



The means by which the San Jose scale came from China to America 

 is a matter of interest and offers room for conjecture. The San Jose 

 scale apparently reached California on trees imported by the late 

 James lAck. It was known that this gentleman was a great lover and 

 energetic importer of trees from foreign countries, and my own 

 belief is that he imported from China, possibly through this same 

 Dr. Nevius or some other, the flowering Chinese peach, and brought 

 with it the San Jose scale to his premises. At any rate, I believe that 

 this insect, which should now be known as the Chinese scale^ came to 

 this country on some ornamental stock from North China. 



PEELIMINARY REPORT ON THE IMPORTATION AND PRESENT 

 STATUS OF THE ASIATIC LADYBIRD. 



( Chilocorus dmUis. ) 

 By C. L. Maklatt, Washington, D. C. 



In this placeja brief account onl\^ will be given of the importation 

 of this ladybird and of the present outlook of the experiment. A 

 detailed account of this insect, giving full life-history studies and 

 other points of interest, will be published elsewhere. It has already 

 been indicated in the foregoing account of the search for the San Jose 

 scale in China and Japan that this ladybird was everywhere present 

 in both of these countries, feeding on the San Jose scale and Diaspis 

 pentagona. The latter scale insect, as was pointed out, is common to 

 all eastern Asia, including Japan, and the East Indies, and undoubt- 

 edly, from its wide distribution and local occurrence in most out-of- 

 the-way districts, is a native of this region and has been spread about 

 in times so remotely past as to be beyond determination. It is prob- 

 ably a tropical species which has worked northward until practically 

 the whole region as far as Pekin, in China, and the north island of 

 Japan has been covered. Whether the ladybird, Chilocorus similis, 

 was in ancient times the natural enemy of the Diaspis can not be 

 determined, although the more wide occurrence of the Diaspis might 

 lead to this idea. This ladybird, however, like other members of its 

 genus, is a general feeder, and will attack other scale insects, even the 

 young of the unarmored scale insects as well as the Diaspine scales. 

 Wherever it was found with the San Jose scale, however, it was very 

 evident that it fed on this scale insect with perhaps even greater 

 readiness than it did on the Diaspis, and in our experimental breeding 

 cages in Washington it has bred faster and done better on the San Jose 

 scale than on the Diaspis. 



After finding this ladybird so generally present with the San Jose 

 scale, and apparently so eflicient in keeping the latter within reason- 



