The herald., 1893-11-17
THAT BUG CONTROVERSY
PROF. COQUILLETT MAKES A
LONG DISTANCE REPLY.
He Denies Having Murderously Impaled
Prof. Koebele's Importations of
Scale Parasites, and Claims
They Were Failures.

Prof. ID. W. Coquillett, of the Wash
ington bureau Of entomology, who, it If
claimed, was unfortunate enough to gel
mixed up in still more unfortunate
controversy about Prof. Koebele's scale
bug parasites, imported from Australia,
and who has recently been recalled to
Washington, under date of November
7th, writes to the HERALD as follows:
My attention has just been called to
your editorial concerning the Australian
lady ybirds, which appeared in Saturday. q
HERALD, October 2Sth, and [ ana greatly
surprised to find that Mr.. A. Scott
Chapman should thus choose to misrep-
resent me before the public, as l never
had any personal trouble with him in
the past, but on the other hand have
repeatedly shown him favors whenever
an opportunity offered itself.
When Mr.. Chapman in company
with Mr.. Goodwin of the California Cul-
tivator, called at my Office in Los Ange-
les, l distinctly stated to them that |
had never received any living specimens
OF rhizobus ventrabis from Mr.. Koebele.
Why Mr.. Chapman should choose to re-
port me as saying that had not re-
ceived any specimens of this insect, is
not clear, but perhaps it should be put
down to his forgetfulness rather than to
any desire on his part to misstate the
facts.
In one Of his letters to me from Au-
stralia, Mr.. Koeble requested me to
keep for him alcoholic specimens of all
the dead insects received from him,
this was done, and the list which you
publish from Mr.. Koeble refers to those
insects, all of which were dead when l
received them, Some idea Of the mum.
ber of insecta tnat died on.the way from
Australia to California may be cleaned
from the San Francisco Chronicle, Sun.
day, December II, 1891, copy of which
is on file in the Los Angeles public
library. On page 20, under the head
ing Valuable Bugs, is given an inter
view with Secretary Lelong concerning
the contents of package of insectt Bent
me from Australia by Mr.. Koeble, and
in the first paragraph occurs the fol-
lowing statement.
'In all there were about 5000 beetles.
and of that number between 200 and 300
were alive"
As to what disposition was made OF
the living insects received by me from
Mr.. Koebele. my report, published on
pages 10 to 26 OF bulletion No. 80, divis-
ion of entomology of the United States
department of agriculture, will show.
am ready to vouch for the correctness ol
the statements made in that report, and
/ assure Mr.. Chapman that not living
insect received by me was put to death
but, on the contrary, everything that
could be done to insure the successful
colonization OF the different insects, was
done.
The fact is that these imported in
sects have not accomplished all that
was predicted of them by certain per.
sons; but, instead of acknowledging
themselves in the wrong, these ind;vid.
uals are now seeking to lay the blame
in some other quarter, and that they
should be aided in this nefarious work
by a man of such we'll known standing
in the community as Mr.. A. Scott
Chapman is quite beyond my compre.
hauai0n