188 THfi ENTOMOLOGIST. 



but may be moved by a very sight touch. The flies under 

 ray care, almost immediately after emergence, which took 

 place the last week in October, strutted about either among 

 the dried leaves or on the sides of the tumbler which had 

 served them for a residence during the pupal stage of their 

 existence, waving their beautiful wings with all the apparent 

 pride exhibited by a peacock spreading his train. It was, 

 however, noticeable that the sexes took not the slightest 

 notice of each other, nor of some pears with which they were 

 constantly supplied as a nidus for their vainly prospected 

 descendants. 



The singular processes on the head, giving one the idea of 

 a pair of suppleuientary and abruptly clavate antennae, dis- 

 tinguish this from any British species of Macquart's sub- 

 tribe Tephritides ; so that in introducing it to the notice of 

 British entomologists there seems no necessity for further 

 details of structure ; but two points still remain open to 

 doubt, and, if entomologists please, to discussion. 



First. What claim has this insect to a place in the British 

 list? PI as it migrated from the orange to the pear, or from 

 the pear to the orange ? Suppose it to be a principal cause 

 of the sleepiness in our pears, it must have been a denizen 

 here from time immemorial. It seems very certain, from the ob- 

 servations of Mr. MacLeay, that it infests the orange in other 

 and far distant regions. JHEe states that he observed the fly 

 on a heap of oranges in the market-place at Funchal, in 

 Maderia, and also at St. Jago, one of the Cape Verds. The 

 inference from these facts, and from its never having been 

 obtained in a wild state in Britain, would, I think, fairly 

 induce the conclusion that the orange was the original pabu- 

 lum of the larva. 



Secondly. How has the larva found its way into the inte- 

 rior of the pear ? Has the egg, in this instance, also been 

 deposited in the blossom ? and was its presence in the 

 Peckham pears, during the unusually fine autuum of 1868, a 

 normal or an exceptional occurrence ? We have at present 

 scarcely any materials towards the solution of these prob- 

 lems, but they are well wortliy the investigating powers of a 

 VoUenhoven, a Healy or a MiHiere. 



Edward Newman. 



