85 



Later on, in the vegetable gardens on the slopes of Mount Tantillus, we 

 found the fruit-fly maggots in many ripening tomatoes and string beans 



There are no laws or regulations dealing with the destruction of damaged 

 fruit in Hawaii. No parasites have been bred from the many pupae and 

 larva 1 under observation in the Entomological Branch of tho United States 

 Experimental Station. 



Fly in India and Ceylon. One of the first species of fruit-fly that 

 J found in India was Dacus cucurbits, and wherever we examined melon 

 gardens in Central or North-Western India, we noticed this fly hovering 

 about, and we bred it from maggot infested melons, cucumbers, bitter gourds, 

 and egg plants. One remarkable thing about this species was, that while 

 Mr. Howlett and I could attract thousands of the two smaller fruit-flies with 

 a handkerchief moistened with citronella oil, we never had a single specimen 

 of this fly come to the bait. 



This species, though well known in India, and represented in most of the 

 museum collections, had not been named, or, at any rate, identified, until 

 Coquiliet named "A new Trypetid.from Hawaii." 



In the northern part of Ceylon, at Jaffna, I found many damaged melons 

 containing fruit-fly maggots, and, later on, bred this species from the pupae: 



Dacus cucurbitce is one of the larger species of the genus, and can be easily 

 recognised by the mottled wings, the brown tints forming a band along the 

 front margin, and two more or less regular transverse markings on the hind 

 portion. 



Herewith is Coquillet's original description. 



Dacus cucurbitce. Head light yellow ; the occiput, except the sides and 

 upper margin, reddish-yellow, an ocellar black dot, front marked with a 

 brown spot in front of its centre, and with three pairs of orbital brown dots, 

 a black spot on each side of the face near the middle, and a brown spot on 

 the middle of each cheek ; antennae, palpi, and proboscis yellow, the latter 

 mottled with brown ; thorax, reddish-yellow, the humeri, a median vitta on the 

 posterior half of the mesonotum, another on each side, above the insertion of 

 the wings, uniting with an irregular band which extends upon the pleura to 

 the upper part of the sternopleura, also a large spot on each side of the 

 metanotum, encroaching upon the hypopleura, light yellow ; scutellum, except 

 iN i-xtreme base, light yellow, bearing two bristles ; abdomen light yellow on 

 first two segments, reddish-yellow on the others, the extreme base, a fascia 

 at the bases of the second and third segments, usually a lateral spot on the 

 fourtli and fifth, also a dorsal vitta on the last three segments, blackish or 

 brownish ; first segment of the ovipositor of the female slightly longer 

 than the fifth segment of the abdomen. Wings hyaline, the apex of the 

 subcostal cell, from a short distance in front of the apex of the auxiliary 

 vein, the marginal and subrnarginal cells, the median third of the first basal 

 cell, and a large spot in upper outer corner of the first posterior cell, brown, 

 this colour encroaching on the third posterior cell and bordering the sixth 

 vein almost to its apex : posterior cross vein bordered with brown, this colour 

 extending to the hind margin of the wing ; upper end of the small cross vein 

 is also bordered with brown. Halteres light yellow. Legs light yellow, the 

 broad apices of the femora and the last four joints of the tarsi reddish-yellow; 

 hind tibiae reddish-yellow or dark brown. Length, 6 to 8 mm. Type, No. 

 4,207 in the L T nited States National Museum. 



