Little Masterpieces of Science: The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer
History
Little Masterpieces of Science: The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer
Evolution (Biology); Natural history
This wonderful success encouraged other efforts in the same direction.
The State of California some years later sent the same entomologist,
Koebele, to Australia to search for some insect enemy of the black
scale, an insect which threatened the destruction of the extensive olive
orchards of California. He found and successfully introduced another
ladybird beetle, known as _Rhizobius ventralis_, a little dark-coloured
creature which has thrived in the California climate, especially near
the seacoast, and in the damp air of those regions has successfully held
the black scale in check. It was found, however, that back from the
seacoast this insect did not seem to thrive with the same vigor, and the
black scale held its own. Then a spirited controversy sprung up among
the olive-growers, those near the seacoast contending that the
_Rhizobius_ was a perfect remedy for the scale, while those inland
insisted that it was worthless. A few years later it was discovered that
this olive enemy in South Europe is killed by a little caterpillar,
which burrows through scale after scale eating out their contents, and
an effort was made to introduce the caterpillar into California, but
these efforts failed. Within the past two years it has been found that a
small parasitic fly exists in South Africa which lays its eggs in the
same black scale, and its grub-like 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."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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