Aug. 3, 1908.] Agricultural Gazette of N.S.TF. 663 



Progress Report from Mr. W. W. Froggatt. 



[Mk. Froggatt is travelling on behalf of the Governments of Queensland, 



New South Wales, Victoria, and .South Australia, in quest of means of 



combating the Fruit-fly and Codling moth pests, and other fruit and plant 



diseases.] 



Constantinople, Turkey, 



Sir, •29th April, 1908. 



I had the honor to forward to you a progress report on my investi- 

 gations when passing through Cuba and the West Indies, posted on my arrival 

 in London on the 1 0th of February. 



I herewith furnish a brief report upon my work in England and while 

 crossing through Europe to this place, which I leave on the .'30th for Cyprus. 

 As soon as I arrived in London I called upon Mr. Coghlan (Agent-General), 

 and, at his suggestion, upon the respective Agents-General of the other States- 

 I am representing. I then presented my credentials to the Chief of the- 

 Entomolosical Staff, who took me round and introduced me to all the 

 officers of the Zoological Department, and placed all their immense collections- 

 of material at my disposal. Heie I spent all the spare time at my disposal 

 going through the diptera with Mr. Austen to see all their species of fruit- 

 flies, and, though the Economic Branch was discontinued last year, I obtained 

 a irreat deal of valuable information from the officers and the examination of 

 the collections in their charge. 



I visited the Zoological Museum at Cambridge University, where Dr. 

 David Sharp is in charge, and spent a day going through their collections, 

 which contain many Australian specimens, and noted the methods they adopt 

 in the mounting and preservation of their museum specimens. Later on I 

 visited Oxford University, and, in the absence of Prof. Poulton, was shown 

 the collections by Commander Walker, who for some years was stationed at 

 Sydney, and welcomed me as an old friend. Here are deposited the very 

 extensive Hope and West wood collections, containing the types of many 

 Australian insects of economic importance, among them a collection of scale- 

 insects, probably the first made of these obscure and then little known insect 

 pests. The collection of diplera contained many specimens of fruit-flies, some 

 of great interest, several specimens of Mediterranean fruit-flies captured in 

 London, noted in Westwood's handwriting in 1840. At the invitation of Mr. 

 G. H, Verrall, of Sussex Lodge, Newmarket, who has the Bigot and Meigen 

 collections of dij)tera in his great collection, I spent two days at his place 

 examining these collections, where also there are many Australian types, and 

 established the habitat of a number of Dacus and other fruit-flies in Cairo, 

 India, Africa, and the Malay Islands, and found specimens of Ceratith catoirei, 

 closely allied to C. capitafa but only recorded from Mauritius and the Island 

 of Bourbon, which I think is a distinct species. 



