WHOLE VOL. APPLIED ENTOMOLOGY HOWARD 415 



In the meantime it was known as early as 1904 that there existed in 

 Malaya a .Lepidopterous insect known as Arlotm catoxantha, and in 

 1914 H. C. Pratt had published a statement that 20 per cent of the 

 caterpillars were parasitized by a Tachinid fly. It was not, however, 

 until 1924 that it was found that not only was this Tachinid the most 

 important parasite of Artona but that it was possible to breed it on 

 other caterpillars. The Fiji experts greeted this announcement with 

 great interest. An account of what happened is published in an 

 article entitled " Further Remarks on Ptychomyia reniota, a Parasite 

 of Artona catoxantha/' by B. A. R. Gater, in the Malayan Agricul- 

 tural Journal, Volume 14, 1926. Mr, Gater states that the first 

 attempts to carry the parasite to Fiji were made by A. M. Lea of 

 South Australia. He took a shipment of puparia on ice in early 1925, 

 but all died on the way. In the same year Mr. Hubert W. Simmonds 

 and Mr. C. H. H. Taylor went from Fiji to Malaya and, by most 

 ingenious methods, succeeded in landing 300 living Tachinids that 

 immediately laid eggs on Levuana larvae in Fiji. 



In the meantime Mr. Veitch had gone to Queensland to accept an 

 appointment, and his important work there has been considered in 

 another place. He was succeeded in 1924 in Fiji by Mr. J. D. Tothill, 

 a Canadian expert, who had done some work for Canada in the Gipsy 

 Moth Parasite Laboratory at Melrose Highlands, Massachusetts. A 

 great deal of very interesting work, largely concerned with the impor- 

 tation of different parasites, was accomplished by Mr. Tothill and 

 his very able assistants, Messrs. Simmonds and Taylor. 



Mr. Tothill was later promoted to^ the position of Superintendent 

 of Agriculture, and in 1929 was transferred to Uganda as Director 

 of Agriculture. He was succeeded as Government Entomologist in 

 Fiji by Mr. Hubert W. Simmonds. 



Aside from this work, the Empire Cotton Growing Corporation 

 employed an expert on cotton insects in Fiji, Mr. R. R. Anson, who 

 in 1928 published a report in which he wrote about pink bollworm, 

 one of the cotton stainers of the genus Dysdercus, one of the so-called 

 tipworms (Earias fabia) and also a fruit-fly that infests cotton bolls. 



The Fiji entomologists have done a great deal of traveling, not 

 only to other South Pacific islands and to Malaya and the Dutch East 

 Indies, but on two occasions to the British West Indies and British 

 Guiana and to New Guinea. 



Mr. Simmonds, the present Government Entomologist, has been 

 devoting much attention of late to the banana borer and has met with 

 considerable success by using a vacuum fumigator and by prolonged 

 partial immersion in water. 



