66 



feeds, and as it increases in size works toward the seeds of the fruit. 

 Most moths spin a cocoon and pupate at once, but the codling moth does, not 

 spin a cocoon in its food, but works its way out through the fruit and drops 

 to the ground if the apple has not fallen before it has finished its larval stage. 

 It doss not give its enemies many chances, but drops or crawls out of the 

 fruit in the night and immediately hunts round for a hiding place, the 

 deeper and more secluded the better. In this shelter, however, though it 

 spins a more or less compact cocoon of silken fibre, it does not pupate and at 

 once turn into a helpless pupa unable to crawl away from danger as is the 

 usual procedure of moth grubs ; but it remains all the winter a perfect cater- 

 pillar, and though enclosad in a loose silken cocoon, it is able and ready to 

 crawl away and hide if disturbed by its shelter being torn down and its 

 cocoon exposed. Its time of pupation is short, a few weeks at most under 

 ordinary circumstances. 



The perfect moth has such a wonderful protective tint, working only at 

 night and hiding during the day, that three-quarters of the orchardists have 

 "never seen a specimen, and could not identify it from a score of other harmless 

 moths common in the orchard. It has not even the very common habit of 

 the moths of coming to a light, and though a number of " codling moth traps" 

 have been tried with a lamp and oil, they are found to catch everything but 

 the moth for which they were invented. 



From the study of the life history of the codling moth, it is useless to 

 expect to find a perfect parasite for this pest in the insect world. We are 

 dealing with highly cultivated fruit and with a highly developed insect that 

 damages it ; its instinct of self-preservation is so highly developed that its 

 iirst duty when it emerges from the apple is to hide in the deepest cracks 

 and crannies in the tree trunk out of sight and reach of its enemies. 



The other great fruit pest, or rather group of fruit pests, are the fruit-flies, of 

 Tvhich the cosmopolitan species Ceratitis capitata is known in Australia as the 

 Mediterranean Fruit Fly. We have another example of an evidently worth- 

 less and much praised parasite for this fly in the notorious Staphylinid 

 beetle, said to be a complete parasite of this particular fruit-fly. It was 

 collected in Bahia, Brazil, and introduced into Western Australia by their 

 entomologist, who took several trips to that part of South America under 

 the impression that this was the native home of this particular fruit-fly. 



Wonderful stories were told of its voracity and its deadly enmity to fruit- 

 fly maggots and pupae ; how it had been securely established at great cost to 

 that State in their citrus orchards ; and it was urged by our fruit-growers 

 that we should obtain this parasite at any cost ; yet it had not been proved 

 that it had killed a single fruit-fly maggot in a West Australian orchard. 

 So much attention, however, was called to this reputed parasite in the fruit- 

 growing world, that the entomologists of Cape Colony and Natal urged their 

 respective Governments to investigate the matter. Cape Colony voted .500 ; 

 Natal, 375 ; Transvaal, 300 ; and Orange River Colony, 125 ; or a total 

 of 1,300 to provide funds. Thus provided, Messrs. Lounsbury and Fuller 

 set out for Bahia to secure supplies of this Staphylinid beetle, to introduce 

 them into the South African orchards. 



How they succeeded, and what they thought of the value of this parasite, 

 is told in Mr. Lounsbury's Report, "Natural Enemies of the Fruit Fly," 

 published in the Agricultural Journal of Cape Colony, September and 

 October, 1905. 



Both these gentlemen are strong advocates of the introduced parasite 

 theory, so that their reports must be taken as an impartial review of the 

 whole question ; and though Mr. Fuller did not remain very long in South 



