Vol. xxvi] 



ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS 



79 



French (i), of Victoria, recommends "an open trench about 

 three feet deep in which the fruit should be buried and a cov- 

 ering of earth rammed down." 



Newman (8), of Western Australia, believes that "two feet 

 of soil, well pressed down, will destroy all the maggots." 



Gurney (3), of New South Wales, writes: "Burying fly in- 

 fested fruit cannot be advocated. Pupae buried 6, 8 and 12 

 inches below the surface of the soil hatched, and adult flies 

 readily made their way to the surface in all cases." 



Van Dine (10), formerly stationed at the Hawaiian Agri- 

 cultural Experiment Station, recom- 

 mends that all melons and vines in- 

 fested with the melon fly maggots 

 (Dacus cucwlntac Coq.) should be 

 collected at intervals of five or six 

 days and covered with earth to a 

 depth of several inches. 



A number of experiments were per- 

 formed to determine the distance that 

 the Mediterranean fruit flies and 

 melon flies, after issuing from the 

 puparia, were able to burrow through 

 sand and soil. 



In the first experiment, several 

 hundred melon fly puparia were placed 

 on two inches of dry, sterilized sand 

 at the bottom o'f a cylindrical jar 

 (24x11^ inches) and this jar was 

 then filled with more of the same kind 

 of sand. A similar vessel, half filled 

 with dry sand, was then inverted over 

 the top of the above mentioned jar. 

 This was done by placing a heavy gla^ 

 plate over the mouth of the jar to be 

 turned upside down, inverting the 

 same above the other vessel and then 

 pulling the glass plate out from be- 



