the Attacks of Insects and Fungi. 
223 
diffusing information as to the life histories and habits of these 
enemies, and. means to lessen and to hinder their dangerous 
action. In our own country there is first and foremost Miss 
Ormerod, the Consulting Entomologist of the Royal Agricul- 
tural Society, who has devoted her life to explain to cultivators 
the mischief done by certain insects, and how to destroy them 
or to diminish their evil effects. Professor Riley has done the 
same in the United States with persistent energy and splendid 
ability. There are a crowd of others in America working on 
the same lines with the utmost intelligence. Among these may 
be mentioned Professors Lintner and Comstock, Dr. Packard 
and Mr. Hubbard. All these are engaged in finding out modes 
of preserving crops from insect ravages. Their works and re- 
ports teem with their successes, and consequent gain to farmers, 
fruit-growers, and gardeners. By their science and practical 
skill the invasions of locusts from the Rocky Mountains into the 
corn-covered plains below have been wonderfully minimised. 
Through their sagacity the Colorado beetle has- been bafiied in 
its work of destroying potato crops by means of poisonous " Paris 
Green " judiciously distributed upon the leaves ; while the Codlin 
moth, the insidious destroyer of apples, quails equally under well- 
directed sprayings of this and its kindred " arsenite," London 
Purple." » 
Perhaps among the many brilliant achievements of the 
generals of the United States entomological army the com- 
plete victory of Professor Riley over the fluted scale (Icerya 
Purcha.n) in the orange and lemon groves of California fitly 
bears the palm. These scale insects in 1886 and 1887 were fast 
destroying all the trees of the citron tribe in California, when 
Professor Riley had the happy thought to send a qualified person 
to Australia to collect and bring over quantities of a beetle 
(Vedalia canlinalis) known to feed upon the scale insects there. 
In an extremely short space of time this beetle, which is much 
like the ladybird (Gocch.iella septem-punctata, Bete de bon Dieu), 
that clears off the aphides from hop plants and roses, had freed 
the greater part of the orange and lemon trees from their foes. As 
Mr. Henry, another American entomologist, remarked, this was 
the " best stroke ever made by the Agricultural Department at 
Washington. The distress was very great indeed, and, had no 
remedy been found, the scale would probably have destroyed the 
' All this is recorded in Professor Riley's remarkable Missouri Reports, 
and his subsequent United States Department of Agrimltnre ; 
also in Dr. Lintner's Annual Reports as Entomologist to the State of New 
York, and in the valuable Reports of the United States Entovwlogieal Coinmis- 
lion, by Professor Riley and Dr. Packard. 
