THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 



317 



The Mediterranean fruit By destroys a large number of fruits and vegetables. The 

 full list is too long to give hero. but ii includes oranges, lemons, grapefruit, coffee, 

 -quash, persimmons, Equals. ligs. tomatoes, mangoes, prickly pears, avocados, 

 string beans, apricots, cherries, peaches, almonds, guavas, pears, quinces, apples and 

 grapes. 



The adult female fly is provided with an ovipositor or sting with which she punc- 

 tures the host fruit and deposits her eggs beneath the skin in some numbers. A single 

 female has been known to lay as many as :;U0 eggs. The eggs hatch in from two to 

 five days the growing maggots then excavating galleries in the fruit and feeding upon 

 the pulp. In ten to fifteen days the maggots complete their development, emerge 

 from the fruit and bury themselves beneath the tree, where they transform to the 

 pupal stage. After ten to thirty or more days, depending upon climatic conditions, 



the adult fly e rges, ready to begin anew its destructive work. It will be seen from 



this that the pest can undergo from six to twelve generations per year, and when 

 we consider .that each female can deposit as many as ::<"> eggs, it is easy to under- 

 stand the destruction that may be accomplished when there are a sufficient number 

 and variety of host plants. 



Fig. 116. — Larvae of the Mediterranean fruit fly in a tomato. 

 This is a sample of some of the dangers which are removed 

 by the quarantine division. Taken in ships' stores from Hono- 

 lulu. (After Essig.) 



It is the enormous reproductive capacity of this insect, together with its large list 

 of hosts, which makes it so formidable, and its habits are particularly disagreeable. 

 Nothing more revolting can be imagined than to open a luscious (apparently I fruit 

 at one's dinner tab]'' and find its interior a seething and wriggling mass of maggots, 

 and the most unfortunate part of the matter is that so far no uniformly successful 

 and at the same time practicable method of control has been devised, excepting 

 possibly the poison bait spray used by Mally in South Africa. Some assistance can 

 of course lie hoped for in the introduction of natural enemies, some of which have 

 already been established in the Hawaiian Islands by the territorial Board of Agri 

 culture and Forestry. 



