INSECTS INJURIOUS TO PEACH, PLUM AND CHERRY 597 



yellow band, the abdominal segments are marked with whitish 

 or pale brownish transverse bands, and the wings are crossed by 

 four blackish bands. The maggot is about one-quarter inch 

 long and is indistinguishable from the apple-maggot. 



Life History. The eggs are deposited just under the skin 

 of the cherry from June until August, or probably during the 

 whole season of the fruit. The eggs hatch in a few days and the 

 little maggots penetrate to the pits, feeding on the flesh and 

 forming a rotting cavity very similar to that made by the grub of 

 the curculio. But few of 

 the affected cherries fall 

 from the trees, and as 

 they frequently show but 

 little effect of the damage, 

 the infested fruit may be 

 marketed and the pest 

 thus spread. When full 

 grown the maggots leave 

 the cherries and form 

 puparia just beneath the 

 surface of the ground, or 

 in the bottoms of baskets 

 or in rubbish, wherever 

 the affected fruit may be. FIG. 524. Section of a cherry, enlarged to 

 The flies commence to show the maggot of the cherry fruit-fly and 



nature of its work. Ihe small figures 

 emerge from these puparia above show the maggot and parent fly nat- 



by the middle of June in ural size - < After Sngerland.) 

 New York and are found during the summer months. 



Control. There is but little evidence as to practical means of 

 control. Deep plowing in spring should result in burying the 

 puparia so deeply as to prevent the emergence of the flies. Culti- 

 vation is evidently of little value, as the pest occurs in well- 

 cultivated orchards, so that shallow cultivation does not seem 

 to affect the puparia. Chickens have been observed to destroy 

 the puparia, and will doubtless prove as effective as against the 

 apple-maggot where they can be confined beneath affected trees 

 on cultivated soil. The destruction of all fruit, whether windfall 



