larvae eat out the bodies of the
scales and destroy them. The climate of the region in which this
parasite exists is dry through a large part of the year, and therefore
this little parasitic fly, known as _Scutellista_, was thought to be
the needed insect for the dry California regions. With the help of Mr.
C. P. Lounsbury, the Government entomologist of Cape Colony, living
specimens of this fly were brought to this country, and were colonized
in the Santa Clara Valley, near San Jose, California, where they have
perpetuated themselves and destroyed many of the black scales, and
promise to be most successful in their warfare against the injurious
insect.

This same _Scutellista_ parasite had, curiously enough, been previously
introduced in an accidental manner into Italy, probably from India, and
probably in scale-insects living on ornamental plants brought from
India. But in Italy it lives commonly in another scale insect, and with
the assistance of the learned Italian, Professor Antonio Berlese, the
writer made an unsuccessful attempt to introduce and establish it a year
earlier in some of our Southern States, where it was hoped it would
destroy certain injurious insects known as "wax scales."

In the meantime the United States, not content with keeping all the good
things to herself, has spread the first ladybird imported--the
_Vedalia_--to other countries. Four years ago the white scale was
present in enormous numbers in orange groves on the left bank of the
river Tagus, in Portugal, and threatened to wipe out the orange-growing
industry in that country. The California people, in pursuance of a
far-sighted policy, had with great difficulty, owing to lack of food,
kept alive some colonies of the beneficial beetle, and specimens were
sent to Portugal which reached there alive and flourishing. They were
tended for a short time, and then liberated in the orange groves, with
precisely the same result as in California. In a few months the scale
insects were almost entirely destroyed, and the Portuguese
orange-growers saved from enormous loss.

This good result in Portugal was not accomplished without opposition. It
was tried experimentally at the advice of the writer, and in the face of
great incredulity on the part of certain Portuguese newspapers and of
some officials. By many prominent persons the account published of the
work of the insect in the United States was considered as untrustworthy,
and simply another inst