73 
APHELINUS FUSCIPENNIS AN IMPORTANT PARASITE UPON THE 
SAN JOSE SCALE IN EASTERN UNITED STATES. 
By W. G. Jounson, College Park, Md. 
For the past eight years the writer has been paying particular 
attention to the parasites attacking scale insects. During this period 
many species have been bred, but not many specimens from any par- 
ticular scale. The instance cited below is, perhaps, the most impor- 
tant from the economic standpoint yet discovered in these observa- 
tions. 
Since we assumed charge of the State work in Maryland we have 
collected the San Jose scale on various food plants, and inclosed 
infested twigs, about 4 inches in length, in glass cylinder tubes open 
at both ends. The ends were closed with cotton, and if any parasites 
existed upon the scales they were easily detected and mounted for 
study. Only upon rare occasions have we taken more than a half 
dozen specimens from a single tube. This experience has been 
repeated year after year until the fall of 1899. 
Of the four species of true parasites known to feed upon the San 
Jose scale, three of them have been bred in Maryland. So far as I 
know Anaphes gracilis How., bred by Dr. L. O. Howard from scales 
from Charles County, Md., has not been reared from this scale from 
any other State. Aspidiophagus citrinus Craw. has been reared only 
in California from this pest. <Aphelinus mytilaspidis Le B. and 
Aphelinus fuscipennis How. have been reared from scales taken at the 
following places in this State: Riverside, Annapolis Junction, Araby, 
and Mitchellville. Last fall, however, I discovered a new locality for 
A. fuscipennis near Easton, Talbot County, in an infested orchard 
along the Miles River. The orchard contained a miscellaneous variety 
of fruits, and all the trees were quite seriously infested with the San 
Jose scale. Instructions had been given the owner to cut them down 
as soon as possible and burn them. <A quantity of small branches 
incrusted with scale were brought to the laboratory and inclosed in 
breeding tubes. Much to my surprise these tubes were swarming 
with parasites a few days later. From one tube 1,114 specimens of 
Aphelinus fuscipennis were taken; while a second tube gave 432, a 
third 1,478, and a fourth more than 1,000, but owing to an accident 
the count in the case last mentioned was not exact. The writer was 
greatly elated over this discovery, and immediately sent out the fol- 
lowing statement to the State press: 
I am advising my correspondents not to burn twigs and branches cut from trees 
infested with the San Jose scale. If the tree is so seriously infested it can not be 
saved; it should be dug up by the roots, trimmed, and the brush and wood piled 
in the orchard, where they should be left until about the Ist of June or longer. If 
the trees are to be sprayed with either, a 25 per cent solution of kerosene and water, 
