Evening star., 1909-04-11
By William Atherton DuPuy
TIE latest development
/ IN international trade

IS a commerce in insects IN
which the parties concerned are none other than
the great and progressive nations themselves
1t IS growing to be ordinary thing Tor the
KheGive OF Egypt to tackle the President of
Chill for a swap OF bottle OF flies for box ot
ticks. or for Uncle sam to trade nest OF
velluwiackets to France for an insect that is
the hereditary enemy of the gypsy moth
1t is good business; for upon the tact that
little feas have other fieas to bite EN-, may
be built a plan of defense against the insect
hordes that from time to time invade communl-
ties and do great damage; for these instructive
enemies NAV be introduced to give them battle.
The manner of marshaling the insect armies is;t
thing that is found out by the bureaus OF eTto-
nologv OF the various nations, and these are
cooperating and have built up a consldera ble
interchange in insects that have been enlisted
IN the fight for man good.
The whole thing started in California, where
the people were so progressive as to sell desert
land sight unseen for five hundred dollars an
acre, and the purchasers so ingenious as to make
II worth one thousand dollars by planting or
anee trees on it. When the scale attacked these
orange trees, the orchard men found a beetle to
eat it. and sicked them on and so saved the day
The scale nothing less than an accumula-
ton of insects, and the peculiar beetle that at
tackled it is none other than the ladvbug OF the
nursery rime that IS admonlShed to 1y away
home" 1t should be remembered, however,
that she may not properly be called bug /;
for that is ugl y word, to say nothing OF It's
Americans and on the other side applied merely
to the inha bitants of boarding house heds. 10
speak by the book, she is ladybird, though
on the face of it that classification may appear
as loose as that Of Mother Goose.
Italy Spain, the British West Indies, and
other communities where oranges are grown,
are calling upon Uncle Sam for great quantities
Of ladvbirds to devour the scale IN those sec
tions. This country is responding freely, and
the insect is going forth to get busy with Its
healthy appetite and do its part toward saving
the orange crop in many parts OF the world
GadAies and Digger Wasps
THE gadtly is pest that is known the world
! round and its pernicious hablt OF singing
animals in the heels while inserting its eggs under
their skin has stampeded many mild faced OK,
from Vicksburg to Calcutta A bit of comedy
that enlivens every meadow IN America is the
attack of the gadhy on the family COW and the
peculiar manner in which she cr1mps her tail
over her back on those occasions and makes for
the waterhole.
The gadfly attacks the camel in similar way
in Africa, and the interest OF the french
Government in Algeria had led to the intro
duction OF the digger wasp, native of Texas
and an enemy of the gadfv, INTO that country.
The wasps have been taken to Algeria and
liberated, and it is expected that they Will
reduce the number of pests and consequently
the disease that affects the cameis througn
infection carried by them.
The handling of the digger wasp in COM
merce is surrounded By some difficulties, as IS
handling the bumblebee. This latter insect IS
indispensable to the clover crop. 1t fits from
bloom to bloom and carries the pollen from one
to the other this interchange being necessary
to the fertilization OF the flowers IN order that
the seeds will reproduce when planted, Where
the bee does not exist, clover cannot be made to
reproduce itself
In the Philippines, for instance, conditions
were found favorable to the growing OF clover;
but the bee absent, and the industry as a
consequence was paralvzed. \ similar condi-
ton had been found IN Australia when the Eng
Iish first planted clover over there, and it was
remedied by transplanting the bumblebee.
Bumblebees in the Philippines
KNOWING these things, the entonlologists of
~ the Department OF agriculture were anxious
to esta blish the bumbebee in the Philippines.
The bun1blebee and the digger wasp each have
business end that is not conducive to intimacy,
and this fact complicated matters The idea
was hit upon Of deluding these insects into the
belief that their trips to sunny cllmes were be-
ing taken in the dead of severe winter and
that they were as a consequence alternating.
To carry out this idea successfully. they were
captured in the winter and their nests placed IN
refrigerator baskets. These were kept well re-
plenished with ice during I he trip, and. despite
the fact that equatorial l;ttudes were reached
the insects were never aware that other condi-
tions than those OF ice and snow existed outside
This may not be true of one consignment that