BY HENRY TRYON. 
25 
■which is met -with on various native trees, especially acacias, and 
also on the citraceous and other economic plants of our gardens. 
These also it visits for the purpose of ridding them, or at least 
checking the increase, of the various scale insects, especially 
those belonging to the Lecanidai ■which infest the trees, and these 
pests it literaUy mows down to the surface of the leaf, so great 
being its voracity. That such an obvious fact should have 
escaped observation, much less comment, seems scarcely credible, 
and yet it is so. Further than this, wherever the writer has 
been, either at Toowoomba or Brisbane, the larva of this insect 
has been regarded as the mealy bug (another coccid unhappdy 
becoming now too prevalent about Brisbane), and, under a mis- 
taken idea, destroyed by those who make a practice of kiUing 
destructive insect-visitants to their crops.” The same msect is 
again alluded to on page 135 of the same report. 
The importance of this discovery to the agricultural interest, 
though lost sight of here, has been fully recognised in other 
countries, as may be concluded from the remarks which are to 
follow. The Hon. Ellwood Cooper, President of the State Board 
of Agriculture of California, in the course of his opening address 
to the Thirteenth State Fruit-growers’ Convention, after quoting 
largely from my report on insect and fungus pests as far as it 
related to “parasites and predaceous insects,” and readmg, 
amongst other extracts from it, the one cited concerning Cryp- 
tol»mus, concluded, “ I will not copy further, but the numerous 
parasites and predaceous insects described in the work ought tO' 
impress upon our minds the importance of an immediate investi- 
gation, even if only a semblance of fact should be credited to the 
report' I urge, therefore, that we memoriahse Congress for an 
adequate appropriation to defray the necessary expenses of a 
specialist to go to Australia and adjacent islands to mvestigate 
these reported predaceous insects.” We next learn that the 
Californian State Legislature, as a result of such memorial, 
appropriated $5000 for sending some one to Austraha for the 
purpose of searching for beneficial insects, and placed this sum 
at the disposal of the United States Government, which in turn 
transferred it to the State Department of Agriculture with a view 
to effecting the object desired. Accordingly, Albert Koebele, an 
officer in the Entomological Branch of the department, whose 
