370 



Agric. N. S. Wales. 1909, p. 28.) Air. Froggatt describes this 

 species as follows : 



This is a handsome, dark yellow and black fruit fly, of medium 

 size, with hyaline wings with the costal margin clouded forming 

 a regular narrow band extending round the tip of the wing ; a 

 small \^-shaped blotch extends downward from the costal stripe 

 clouding either side of the transverse cross nervure between the 

 first posterior and basal cell, with the usual stripe down the inner 

 side of the wing. Length, 6 mm. Head yellow, eyes purplish- 

 black, antennae fuscous at the tips, bristles black, without black 

 spots on the face ; thorax, with the whole of the dorsal surface, 

 covered with a dark shield-shaped black patch, with the center 

 covered with an elongate double bar of silvery white ; the shoul- 

 ders, sides of the body, and scutellum bright yellow, a narrow 

 band or short bar of the same color on the sides of the thorax ; 

 the scutellum somewhat elongated when viewed from behind, 

 more convex when viewed from above, with two bristles at the 

 hind margin ; a few scattered bristles on the hind margin of the 

 head and the sides of the thorax ; legs yellow, thighs of hind legs 

 and tarsi darker ; abdomen elongate, with the base and two 

 narrow transverse black bands below, the second broadest on the 

 sides ; sheath and ovipositor elongated. 



Habitat — Fiji. Bred in Sydney from larvae taken from ba- 

 nanas in shipments of fruit from Suva. Several specimens of 

 both sexes. Type in Agricultural Dejiartment's collection. New 

 South Wales. 



LITTLE BROWN ANT DOING GOOD WORK 

 IN HAWAII. 



By Prof. J. F. Illincwortii, Ph.D., 



Professor of Entoiiioloi^y, College of Haivaii, Hoiiolitlii, T. if. 



Investigations at the College of Hawaii indicate that the little 

 brown ant (Plieidolc niegaccphala) is the principal factor hold- 

 ing house-flies in check under our tropical conditions. It is 

 roughly estimated that fully 75% of the flies are destroyed. I 

 first called attention to the value of this ant as a destroyer of 

 house-flies while carrying on investigations in tlie Mji Islands 

 during the past summer. 



The remarkable scarcity of house-flies in I'^iji indicated that 

 something was effectively destroying them. With all the ()])en 

 refuse-pits which ]:)revail there, one would naturally conclude 

 that tliese flies would nndti])ly in liordcs. in fact, if nothing 

 lu'ld them in check in a coinitry with the climatic conditions of 

 I'iji. tliev would become so abimdant that humans would not l)^• 

 able to exist. Recognizing this fart, 1 suspected that somi' i),ira- 

 site was preying upon them and l)egan a series of cxperinuiits 



