Se garmmme f 
1 Juxn, 1898. ] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL, 503 
It has, however, been stated with regard to one internal parasite, a minute 
hymenopteron named Aphelinus mytilaspidis, Le Baron, that in one instance it 
had been found to have fatally victimised Pernicious Scale insects to the extent 
of 63 percent. The well-known above-mentioned New Jersey entomologist 
—to whom the writer is under many oblizations—has, moreover, affirmed that 
“there is little doubt but that south of San Francisco the seale has been kept 
in check by natural causes [the work of insects being referred to—H.7.], and 
has been reduced by them to its present harmless condition (there).” (XI., p. 5.) 
Similar natural checks on the increase of the San José Scale are afforded 
in Australia by both internal and external predaceous insects. W. W. Froggatt 
writes: ‘“ Whilst examining an apple-tree at Benowa, New South Wales, 
infested with Aspidiotus perniciosus I found a number of both the perfect 
beetle and larve of a small black ladybird (2hizobius debilis, Blackb.) feeding 
upon the young scale.” (1., p. 880.) g 
A related insect to it—apparently Rhizobius hirtellus, Crotch—was observed 
in the performance of a similar service at Stanthorpe in 1896. The most effective 
beetle in Pernicious Seale destruction in Southern Queensland is, however, 
probably the six-spotted Oreus (O. australasie@, Dej.), » ladybird whose useful 
work in repressing pests of the class to which it belongs was already pointed 
out by the writer in 1889 (vid. “ Insect and Fungus Pests, Brisb. 1889,” page 
136). This beetle, both in its larval and adult condition, mows the insect down 
to the bare bark with its jaws. Unfortunately, however, it is only locally 
prevalent. In 1896 it was introduced to the orchard of Mr. k. Hogean, of 
Ballandean, by the writer, and, it is thought, assisted in the extermination of the 
San José Scale that had become accidentally established there at an earlier date. 
W. W. Froggatt also writes that, on the occasion previously alluded to, 
he observed “that many of the larger stems were covered with a fine web, and 
upon removing it was exposed a slender caterpillar. A. number of these were 
collected, and within a week, after being fed on San José Scale, spun elongate, 
oval, white, silken cocoons upon the foliage, and perfect moths emerged on the 
27th November,a fortnight after they were collected” (I.,page880). This insect, 
or one closely related to it, has been found to oceur also, feeding in April upon 
Pernicious Scale on the Darling Downs, Queensland, having been met with by 
the writer in association with its host when wood infested by the latter was 
received at his office. The Queensland insect presents the following features :— 
Tt is a small tineid moth, having narrow, reddish, fawn-coloured, black-speckled 
forewings and almost linear dark-grey hind ones, both pair being fringed with long 
dark-grey cilia, which in the case of the forewings become of more pronounced hue- 
towards the apex. The insect is also endowed with a peculiar tuft of long-curved 
whitish scales on the front of the head. It has a wing expansion of 14 mm. (63 lines). 
The same insect was referred to by the present writer in 1889 as feeding 
upon the White Scale of the orange (Chionaspis citi'7) in the manner described 
by Froggatt, in a work issued by this Department in 1889 and again in 1894 
(vid. “Insect and Fungus Pests,’ 1889, p. 128; and Bulletin (Depart. Agr. 
- Qd.) No. 4, 2nd series, p. 14). Judging from the little that it accomplishes in 
subduing the orange scale-inseet mentioned, not much is to be expected of it 
in checking the increase of the insect pest under notice. However, the dis- 
covery on the part of the Government Entomologist of New South Wales, now 
confirmed, is a matter of more than scientific interest. 
Again, the writer has detected the presence of a small hymenopterous 
parasite victimising to a limited extent the Pernicious Seale, on the Darling 
Downs also. : gas 
The insect is also kept in check, at least in the coastal districts of the 
colony, by a parasitic fungus named Aierocera coccophila, Desm., or Spherostilbe 
coccinea, Tulasne. The useful offices of this vegetable parasite, as a scale-insect 
destroyer of the Circular Red Scale (Aspidiotus aurantit), was pointed out by 
the writer in 1889 (“Insect and Fungus Pests,” p. 180), and again as injuri- 
ously related to the same scale insect and to the Cireular Black (A. ficus), and 
to Glover’s Mussel Scale (Mytilaspis Gloveri) in 1894 (Bulletin, No. 4 2nd 
