72 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
fungus appears to have been abundantly 
successful in checking the chinch bug. 
The fact that past efforts at obtaining 
an enemy fromi China of the imported 
San Jose Scale have not been successful 
does not indicate that this will not event¬ 
ually be accomplished. Efforts are being 
made to find and import the natural ene¬ 
mies of the gypsy moth and the brown- 
tail moth into Massachu'setts from Eu¬ 
rope. Efforts are also at present being 
made to introduce the parasites of the 
purple scale of citrus into Italy where this 
scale appears to be on the increase. The 
officers of the Pasteur Institute are un¬ 
dertaking the introduction of an American 
robber fly into Algeria for the purpose of 
reducing the numbers of a certain taba- 
ni'd (a member of the horsefly tribe) 
known to be instrumental in spreading a 
certain disease of the dromedary. 
While Americans have not been idle in 
the matter of propagating fungus and in¬ 
sect parasites of insect pests, on the other 
hand some very interesting work goes to 
the credit of foreigners. I have already 
referred to the presence of the purple scale 
of citrus in Italy and the effort to obtain 
a parasite of the same from Florida. It 
is now nearly a year that I prepared (at 
the request of Dr. L. O. Howard) a box 
of citrus leaves and twigs heavily infest¬ 
ed with this scale to be shipped to Dr. Ber- 
lese of Italy for this pui*pose. I have also 
previously referred to the efforts of the 
Pasteur Institute in behalf of the drome¬ 
dary in Algeria. I shall next briefly re¬ 
view a few more instances of like nature 
and interest. 
Experiments have been made by Ger¬ 
man and French investigators to destroy 
the grubs of cockchafers by means of a 
fungus frequently found parasitic upon 
these. An effort has been made in France 
(but only partially successful) to control 
a certain turnip weevil by infecting the soil 
with a parasitic fungus in order to destroy 
the grubs. In South-west Africa grasshop¬ 
pers have been in part controlled by means 
of a species of mucor {Mucor locustici- 
da), a relative of the gray bread mold. 
One of the most successful as well as 
important efforts in this line relates to 
the destruction of field mice in Thessaly 
by the use of the Bacilliis typhi murium, 
or in plain English the bacillus of mouse 
typhoid. This germi is distributed (1903) 
on small pieces of bread or other culture 
media used for growing fungi and bac¬ 
teria in the laboratory by several of the 
states of Germany and Austria. It is not 
known to be injurious to man or domestic 
animals. A disease-producing microbe of 
rats has also been discovered by a French- 
mian. 
In 1906 six disease-producing bacteria 
were cultivated and recommended by the 
state laboratories of Russia. These were 
recommended for the destruction of the 
following animals: House-mouse, rats, 
marmots, wood-mouse, field-mouse, ear¬ 
less-marmot, and the Norway rat. 
THE WHITEFLY AND ITS FUNGUS ENEMIES. 
With this fragmentary review before 
us, I desire next to take up in some detail 
the work done in Florida on methods of 
distributing the several fungi, parasitic 
upon the whitefly. The remarkable in¬ 
crease of the whitefly is perhaps best ex¬ 
plained by the probable fact that this in¬ 
sect is a foreign importation with but a 
few of its natural enemies, the fungi, 
coming along with it. The great in¬ 
crease of this insect in newly infested sec¬ 
tions of the state can also be explained in 
this way: The fungi do not at once fol¬ 
low the fly to these newly infested sec- 
