105 



Ceratitis capitata, in the first place, is a citrus fruit post, but as it has 

 spread has learnt to feed upon all kinds of fruits ; and after the orange may 

 be known as a peach pest. At the present time there is hardly any kind of 

 fruit that it has not been bred from, so that any list of infested fruit is quite 

 {superfluous. In fact, they have been bred from a number of native fruits; 

 but the native fruits are so rare, comparatively speaking, in the greater part 

 of the fruit-growing districts of Australia, that they are not an important 

 factor in the spread of the pest, and are more likely to be infested themselves 

 from an adjacent orchard than to be a centre of infection to the orchard. 

 Ceratitis cap data has been described in a more or less imperfect manner a 

 great man}- times, but is better known from the beautiful coloured figures, 

 published by Macleay, and again by Breme, when he called it C. hispanica. 

 As several new species have been added to the members of this genus, and 

 some confusion exists about the identity of the ( arlier described species, I 

 propose not to give a scientific description but a popular one, that anyone 

 can grasp with the insect before them. 



Size, 4 to 5 mm., about the size of an average house-fly, but looking some- 

 Avhat smaller when dead, because the body shrinks up beneath the thorax. 

 General colour, ochreous yellow, lighter on the sides of thorax and basal 

 joints of the antennae. Tne eyes of the usual reddish purple tint, with a 

 blackish blotch in the centre of the forehead, from which spring two stout 

 black bristles, a fine fringe of similar bristles round the hind margin of the 

 head, with some coarser ones cuiving round in front of the head between the 

 eyes. The thickened basal joints of the antennae pale yellow, the terminal 

 segments black to the tips. The dorsal surface of the thorax convex, raised, 

 and broadly rounded with the scutellum, the ground colour creamy white to 

 yellow, marbled with shining black blotches forming an irregular mosaic 

 pattern, the lighter portions clothed with very fine white bristles. These 

 light-coloured bristles more lightly scattered over the dark areas, and the 

 whole bearing large stout black bristles thickest on the black surface. 



In many of the pictures of this insect the black areas are drawn as if they 

 were projecting bosses or knobs, but this is incorrect ; the whole forms a 

 regular rounded surface. 



The wings are broad, semi-opaque, with the extreme base blotched with 

 ochreous or brownish yellow, with the rest of the basal area curiously marked 

 Avith black, forming dark lines of the radiating neivures, with dark lines and 

 spots between ; beyond this is a broad irregular transverse ochreous band, 

 slightly lined with black, blotched at the extremity ; another similar shaped 

 and coloured blotch runs along inside but not in contact with the costal 

 nervure, also black towards the extremity in tta angular space. Between 

 these bands is another shorter black band rirnning parallel with the first 

 transverse band. 



The oval abdomen is clothed on the upper surface with fine, scattered 

 black bristles, and has two rather broad transverse silvery white bands on 

 the basal half of the body. The male differs from the female in being furnished 

 A\ ith a pair of stalked appendages standing out in front of the head in a line 

 with the front margin of the eyes, the extremities of which filaments an- 

 produced into spatulite appendages, black, finely striated, and diamond 

 shaped. 



The living fly is an active little creature, running about over the foliage or 

 fruit on the trees, with its win^s drooping down on the sides of the body. 

 When disturbed it has a short flight, seldom flying more than a few yards at 

 the most, and it often returns to the same spot. 



