After careful investigation it was concluded that the leaf-hopper had been introduced in Hawaii in new varieties of seed cane imported from Australia, and, as the hopper was not doing material damage on the plantations in Australia, the inference was that it must be controlled there by its natural enemy. The chief of the Department of Entomology was sent to London. There in the archives of the British Museum he found a full description of the leaf-hopper and that its native habitat was Queensland, Australia. On his return to Hawaii, entomologists were sent to Australia and the search for the enemy of the hopper began. [Illustration: LEAF-HOPPER (GREATLY MAGNIFIED)] [Illustration: SUGAR CANE] For weeks the entomologists virtually lived in the cane fields, undergoing extreme privations, but at last their faithfulness was crowned with success. Several species of parasites that kept the Queensland leaf-hopper in check were discovered, and later on more were found in the islands of Fiji. These tiny creatures as a rule were invisible to the naked eye and could only be seen with the aid of a powerful magnifying glass. All of these insects were parasites either of the leaf-hopper or its eggs. Two of them were particularly efficacious. One, quicker in movement than the hopper, caught it unawares and attached itself to the hopper’s body much in the same way that a mosquito does to a human being. After catching it, the parasite would sting the hopper and lay an egg in its body. In a few days a young parasite was hatched from the egg, and so ravenous was this young insect that it devoured the hopper in a short time and then sought a fresh victim in which to lay its eggs. The other insect was even more effective. It liked the hoppers’ eggs and for a long time found plenty in Hawaii to stay its appetite. As soon as the leaf-hopper laid its eggs in the cane, this particular insect would appear and lay its eggs in the eggs of the leaf-hopper. When the little enemies hatched out, they fed on the hoppers’ eggs and in turn laid their eggs in the eggs of the hopper. It came to pass that the hoppers, attacked by the parasite on the one hand and by the enemy on the other, rapidly dwindled in number until only a few remained, and these not enough to do material damage. As the hoppers and their eggs diminished, so did the parasite and the enemy, for the latter could live on insect food only. How the scientists collected these tiny animalcules, kept them alive, transported them thousands of miles across the ocean, bred them in Hawaii and saved the Hawaiian sugar industry, reads like a romance.