"Years and years ago, there lived in some fragrant-leaved orange-trees in Australia some white cottony cushion insects whose life was untroubled by other cares than those of eating and of looking after the children. As each insect was fastened for life on the leaf or twig that supplied it with all the food it needed, which was simply an occasional drink of sap, and as the white insects always died before their children were born, neither of these cares was very harassing. On thousands of other similar fragrant-leaved orange-trees in Australia lived millions of other similar white insects. And for a long time this race of white insects enjoyed life. Those were happy days. But on a time there came into one of the trees a few small red beetles, who eagerly and persistently set about the awful business of eating the defenceless white insects. From this tree the red beetles, or the children of them, went to other trees where white insects lived, and with unrelenting rapacity and uncloyed appetite ate all the white insects they could find. And so in other trees; and finally, with years, the red beetles had invaded all of the thousands of fragrant-leaved orange-trees in Australia, and had eaten nearly all of the millions of white insects.
"One day a very small orange-tree was taken out of the ground in Australia and sent with many others across the ocean to California. On this small tree there were a few of the white insects. The little tree was planted again in California and soon put out many fresh fragrant leaves. The white insects were astonished and rejoiced that day after day went by without the appearance of any red beetles. The white insects increased in numbers; there were thousands of fragrant-leaved orange-trees in California, and in a few years there were millions of white insects in them. One morning a man stood among the trees and said, 'Confound these bugs; they'll ruin me; what shall I do?' and a man who knew said, 'Get some red beetles from Australia.' So this orange-grower, with some others, paid a man to go to Australia and collect some live red beetles. The collector went across the ocean, three weeks' steady steaming, and sent back a few of the voracious little beetles in a pill box. They were put into a tree in a California orange-orchard in which there were many cottony cushion scale insects. The red insects promptly began eating the white ones; and their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren have kept up this eating ever since. And so the orange-growers never tire of telling how the red beetles (whose name is Vedalia) were brought from Australia to save them from ruin by the white insects (whose name is Icerya)."
Now there are not many cottony cushion scales left in California. A very promising colony of them seems to have sprung up in my Scotch broom bushes. But the red beetles have found their way there already, as Mary and I discovered to-day, and so we think that by the time the broom flowers come, there will be few white insects left in the bushes.
[THE VENDETTA]
This is the story of a fight. In the first story of this book, I said that Mary and I had seen a remarkable fight one evening at sundown on the slopes of the bare brown foothills west of the campus. It was not a battle of armies—we have seen that, too, in the little world we watch,—but a combat of gladiators, a struggle between two champions born and bred for fighting, and particularly for fighting each other. One champion was Eurypelma, the great, black, hairy, eight-legged, strong-fanged tarantula of California, and the other was Pepsis, a mighty wasp in dull-blue mail, with rusty-red wings and a poisonous javelin of a sting that might well frighten either you or me. Do you have any wasp in your neighborhood of the ferocity and strength and size of Pepsis? If not, you can hardly realize what a terrible creature she is. With her strong hard-cased body an inch and a half long, borne on powerful wings that expand fully three inches, and her long and strong needle-pointed sting that darts in and out like a flash and is always full of virulent poison, Pepsis is certainly queen of all the wasp amazons. But if that is so, no less is Eurypelma greatest, most dreadful, and fiercest, and hence king, of all the spiders in this country. In South America and perhaps elsewhere in the tropics, live the fierce bird-spiders with thick legs extending three inches or more on each side of their ugly hairy bodies. Eurypelma, the California tarantula, is not quite so large as that, nor does he stalk, pounce on and kill little birds as his South American cousin is said to do, but he is nevertheless a tremendous and fear-inspiring creature among the small beasties of field and meadow.