
nw % ‘9 MONTHLY LETTER OF THE BUREAU OF ENTOMOLOGY 
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
——S ee ad 
Number 166 ea February, 1928 ° 

TROPICAL AND SUBTROPICAL PLANT INSECT INVESTIGATIONS 
A. C. Baker, Senior Entomologist, in Charge 
Fron James Zetek, in charge of the field laboratory at Ancon, 
Canal Zone, it is learned that on February 1 T. H. C. Taylor, Entomologist 
to the Department of Agriculture of Fiji, arrived in the Canal Zone on a 
journey from Trinidad, and was a visitor at the field laboratory until 
his departure on February 3 for the Fiji Islands. He brought with him 
a large shipment of cages containing young coconut palms heavily infested 
with the scale insect Aspidiotus destructor, and at least five species 
of ladybird beetles. This scale insect is particularly troublesome in 
Fiji, and Mr. Taylor believes that at least two of these ladybird beetles 
will prove very efficient in controlling it. The Levuana moth, also a 
serious pest of the coconut in Fiji, is now under complete control by 
parasites introduced by Mr. Taylor. 
C. F. Doucette, in charge of the field laboratory at Puyallup, 
Wash., spent the interval from the early part of December to about the 
end of January working up the results of the experiments conducted by 
him during the last season on the fumigation and hot-water treatment 
of narcissi for the control of narcissus bulb flies. This was done at 
the field laboratory at Santa Cruz, Calif., in cooperation with Dr. F. R. 
~Cole, in charge of that laboratory. 
At the invitation of the California State Department of Agri- 
culture, Mr. Doucette while in California accompained E. L. Smith, super- 
intendent of nurseries in that State, in a survey of the bulb-—producing 
areas in the vicinity of Los Angeles and San Diego. He also conferred 
with the county horticultural commissioners in that region on the insect 
problems of the various bulbous and ornamental crops grown there. 
Dr. Baker spent the most of February in the Lower Rio Grande 
Valley of Texas, looking over the work on the control and eradication 
of the Mexican fruit worm and arranging for a permanent organization 
to handle the control features for which money was provided in the first 
Deficiency Bill of 1928. Late in February he went into Mexico, accom- 
pained by Dr. C. I. Bliss and Mr. M. McPhail, to locate and arrange for 
the establishment of a laboratory to conduct research work on the Mexican 
fruit worn. 
