THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 



CALIFORNIA STATE COMMISSION OF HORTICULTURE 



Vol. VI. 



April, 1917. 



Nos. i and 4 



THE MEDITERRANEAN FRUIT FLY.* 



By E. A. Back, Bureau of Entomology, Washington, D. C. 



Ever since the days in 1899 and 1900 when Mr. George Compere, then 

 traveling in the Antipodes, wrote to Mr. Alexander Craw of the destruc- 

 tion wrought by the Mediterranean fruit fly (Ceratitis capitata) and 

 the Queensland fruit fly i Dacus tryoni I among the "plum, prune, peach, 

 and apricol orchards" of Australia, and of the danger that these pests 

 might be introduced into California, the progressive men of the Grizzly 

 Bear State have been keenly alive to this danger that threatens them. 



S 



Fig. 15. View of Honolulu. An inventory of fruit fly conditions in Honolulu proved 

 that on sixty blocks in the residential section shown above there were 4.610 trees, 

 or an average of 6.5 trees to the dooryard, that bore fruits in which the Mediterranean 

 fruit fly breeds. Many of these trees bear fruits ripening in greater or less quantities 

 each month of the year. This condition exists within a four to fifteen minute walk 

 from the docks from which steamers are sailing each week for San Francisco. 

 (Original.) 



That Compere's warning was no false one has already been proved by 

 the space which the Monthly Bulletin has given to the problems which 

 have arisen ami have threatened California because of the introduction 

 and rapidspread of the Mediterranean fruit fly throughout the Hawaiian 

 Islands. The sending to these islands of Carnes and "Weinland, by the 

 California State Commission of Horticulture, and of Maskew, by the 



•Published with the permission of the Secretary of Asiirulture. 

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