The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1903-10-14
THE BUG
THAT PREyS
Lantana Enemies
Perform Their
Duty.
KoebeIe's Pets Are
Doing Good
Work.
Honolulu and Suburban Lantana
Patches Thoroughly Inoculated
and Spread Arrested.

The paper on 'Lantana Bugs"
which is being prepared by r. c. L.
Perkins, the government entomologist,
for reading before the annual meeting
OF the Live Stock Breeders Associa-
ton, will contain many facts that will
be hailed as harbingers of better days
to come for graziers and agricuiturists
generally, throughout the Territory.
It will be remembered that the first
progenitors of the predatory insects
were imported into Hawaii through
the efforts of Professor Koebele and
represented the pith of his arduous
work in Mexico along these lines. The
insects arrived here in a desperate
condition of vitality. Many We're be-
yond resurrection or repair and only a
scant half dozen or so showed signs
of life.
The survivors were given the great
est attention by Mr.. Perkins who
realized their possible value and little
| by little they became, first GONZALES
| cent but listless, then healthy and at
| last voracious, their appetites turning
aside, greatly to the entomologist's de-
| light, from any diet but a constant one
of lantana blooms.
| Luckily, among these founding ma
| and the multiplication of species, so
| rife among insect life, speedily took
place. AS fast as a new brood, if that
be correct term, became able to find
for themselves, Mr.. Perkins started
) out with a selection of the lustiest and
carefully distributed them around the
| city and environs. Soon they were
| seen to be properly acclimated and
ready to thrive in their new home and
further propagation at headquarters
ceased. The Introduction was effected.
The result within six months, is pat
ent to anybody who cares to pick a
spray of lantana anywhere within a
limit of three miles from the postoffice,
while in certain directions the radii
of search may be considerably ex-
tended. The bug, a dark-colored
fly about the size of an ordinary house
fly, but less gauzy and infinitely more
business-like in appearance, may
readily be found in almost every sprig.
It is a sluggish insect and does not
readily leave the plant on which it
dwells, lives and raises a predacious
! maggot which promptly attacks the
plant from birth with a sublime and
useful disregard of gratitude towards
the author of its nourishment.
Every flower will be seen to have
been attacked, it's pistils and stamens
demolished and it's organs of reproduce
ton destroyed or paralyzed. The
leaves also show a brownish blight.
The lantana bug does not kill the
plant but it destroys the generative
action of the flowers and absolutely
prevents propagation. The plants af-
fected will live for several years I'M
less cut down and ploughed up, but
they will be barren and the spread of
the scourge is absolutely arrested in
districts where the bug has started it's
work. All the grazier, planter, or
general culturist has to do to reclaim
land, once the bug is established, is to
demolish the lantana crop then grow
ing on the land.
The bug multiplies rapidly and there
is said to be no danger of its attack
ing other plants, there being no other
growth of the verbena species on the
islands and the bug having been
adapted or evolved precisely to meet
the exigencies of the case. When all
the lantana has ceased to flower, the
bug itself will be exterminated, it's
work completed.
1t is Mr.. Perkins opinion that there
cannot be examined a patch of Ian
tana, or a plant, within Honolulu and
it's environs that is not infested and
is not being rendered non-productive.
Mr.. Perkins paper will treat the sub
ject in exhaustive fashion when it is
presented which depends upon the re-
] turn to health of the entomologist.