305 



Leaving Singapore on the 9th of November, we arrived at 

 Negapatam on the 16th, and from there I proceeded by rail to 

 Bangalore, in Mysore State, a locality highly recommended by 

 Compere. I may say that the idea of going to Pusa had to be 

 abandoned on account of the low temperatures prevailing there 

 during the winter months. I found Bangalore suited to my pur- 

 poses, although it is not, as I had expected it to be, in a rich 

 agricultural or fruit-growing section ; it is really one of the hill 

 stations of India, in normal times with a garrison of more than 

 10,000 troops, and on account of its fine climate, has attracted- 

 many Indian pensioners. It was natural, therefore, to find on the 

 outskirts of the city extensive gardens, and my first examination 

 of these revealed the melon fly. I utilized a small room in the 

 hotel as a laboratory, and was soon rearing hundreds of flies. 

 Before I had a chance to breed the parasites brought from Java, 

 the same species appeared in Indian material, and in a very 

 short time I had a flourishing colony. I spent five weeks or more 

 in India, rearing about 10,000 flies. Out of these Opius fletcheri 

 came abundantly, and I was also able to cultivate a small lot of 

 Spalangias; but nothing further appeared, and after my own ex- 

 tensive work and the assurance of Mr. Fletcher, the Imperial 

 Entomologist, that nothing else had ever been bred by them from 

 D. cuciirhitac, I decided I had exhausted this field and it was time 

 to move on to the Philippines. All the while in India I was look- 

 ing closely for Syntomosphyriim indicum, the fruit fly parasite 

 introduced by Compere into Australia, by Lounsbury into the 

 Cape, and by Silvestri into Italy, but I saw nothing of it, and the 

 Indian Entomologist could give me no information about it be- 

 yond what I already knew. 



Leaving Bangalore on the night of December 23 for Colombo, 

 I was detained by the Indian police at Dhanuskodi for three days 

 en route, but arrived in ample time to catch the Spanish mail 

 December 31, and after an uneventful voyage of 18 days reached 

 Manila with about 75 living examples of the Indian parasite, 

 Opius fletcheri, which I had carried with me on leaving India. 

 While stopping in Singapore I had also secured infested fruit to 

 breed the parasites en route, and from this material I subsequently 

 got 64 additional individuals. 



In Manila I received very generous assistance from the Bureau 

 of Agriculture and Science, and established a laboratory in a 

 room set aside for me at the latter institution. I found fruit very 

 scarce and practically no cultivated cucurbits. Under the cir- 

 cumstances I was obliged to depend entirely for rearing and 

 breeding purposes on momordicas. These fruits are dry and do 

 not give the same trouble with regard to mold that cucumbers do ; 

 at the same time they contain very few maggots, and are got 

 only with great exertion and loss of time. As a consequence my 

 stock of parasites dwindled, and I was disappointed in the hope 



