620 
sible to find them but for the maps previ- 
ously made on the cards in the manner 
already described. Provided with these 
maps, our field men know just where to 
look and lose no time. Their task, how- 
ever, is difficult and laborious. 
Usually once a week a mule pack train 
comes over the mountain trail to the 
camp to bring supplies and to carry away 
the sacks of beetles which have been 
accumulated. By this means the-insects 
are conveyed to the nearest railway sta- 
tion, which is a distance of about 12 
miles, where a small building has been 
rented and equipped as a packing house. 
Here the crop is cleaned, put up in suit- 
able packages, and made ready for the 
long hibernation. 
Between the time that the field men 
return from the preliminary location and 
the time the real collecting begins, the 
insectary force, assisted by the field men, 
are busily engaged in making the ship- 
ping crates. Each one is 138 inches long, 
eight inches wide, and 12 inches deep, 
covered on two sides with fine mesh wire 
netting and loosely filled with dry, clean 
excelsior. These receptacles are eventu- 
ally to contain the ladybird crop, and 
Fig. 12. A Collector Coming into Camp with 
a Day’s Catch. Each collector carries a 
sieve and wears rubber boots to keep out 
the snow. 
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PRACTICAL HORTICULTURE 
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Fig. 18. The Golden Chalcid (Aphelinus dias- 
pidis Howard [Family Eulophidae]). The 
adults are exceedingly small and delicate, 
bright yellow insects. Common throughout 
the south part of California, though it prob- 
ably occurs in many central and northern 
sections. Parasitic upon red scale (Chrysam- 
Ari aurantii) and rose scale (Aulacaspis 
rosae). 
when completed they are shipped to the 
packing house in the mountains. 
During the packing season one man is 
left in charge of the packing house, who 
attends to recleaning and resacking the 
insects. He then proceeds with the next 
step in the packing process, which is to 
pour the bugs from the sacks into an 
ingenious machine which counts them: 
they are counted, that is to say, by meas- 
urement. Dropping into a sort of hopper, 
made of tin and. glass, they are measured 
as they pass through this machine (which 
is operated by a system of slides) into 
the shipping crates before, mentioned. 
Fig. 14. The Two-Stabbed Ladybird Beetle 
(Chilocorus bivulnerus Muls). The adults 
are broadly oval and about three-sixteenths 
of an inch long. The color is shiny black 
with two round blood-red spots upon the 
wing covers. The extreme margins of the 
prothorax are pale. The under side of the 
abdomen is red. The larvae are very shiny, 
dark in color, with a yellow tranverse band 
across the middle. This is one of the na- 
tive ladybird beetles and is to be found in 
almost every part of California. The larvae 
and adults are voracious feeders upon the 
San Jose scale (Aspidiotus perniciosus), 
young of the black scale (Saissetia oleae), 
mealy bugs (Pseudococcus citri and P. long- 
ispinus), oyster shell scale (Lepidosaphes 
ulmi), EBuropean elm scale (Gossyparia 
spuria) and other scale insects. 
