FRUIT FLIES 31 



oranges had been destroyed during the last two years 

 by this maggot, and that a Commission had been 

 appointed by the Governor to report on the best means 

 of checking this pest. In the following year a pamphlet 

 was published in the Mediterranean Naturalist, by 

 Professor N.Tagliaferro, at the expense of the Agricultural 

 Society of Malta to give the orange growers a popular 

 account of the fly. He advised them to ' smear a few 

 oranges on each tree with honey, so that the adult 

 fly would in gathering round them be caught and 

 destroyed. 1 



Miss Ormerod, in Notes and Descriptions on a few 

 injurious Farm and Fruit Insects in South Africa, records 

 Halterophora capitata as one of the serious pests of the 

 fruit growers in South Africa. 



In Malta, as has already been stated, we are informed 

 that the Mediterranean fly does great damage to the 

 orange crops, and, according to the Revd. Mr. Henslow, 

 its attacks appear to be confined to oranges alone. 



In a late number of the Agricultual Journal of the 

 Cape of Good Hope, Mr. Lounsbury gives an account 

 of how the trees are netted to protect the fruit from these 

 flies. But, unless fruit is much more valuable than it 

 is at present in New South Wales, it would not pay to 

 treat the trees in this manner, as he says it costs about 

 3s. per tree to protect them by this process from the 

 flies. 



Mr. Fuller, formerly an Australian, but now Gov- 

 ernment Entomologist of Natal, gives the following- 

 account of the habits of this insect, as observed by him r 

 and which was for some time known to us in Victoria as 

 the West Australian fruit fly : u The eggs are laid in 

 the fruit by the female fly, and the larvae are soon 

 hatched from them and commence feeding. When they 

 are full grown the maggots leave the fruit and enter the 

 soil to pupate, that is to change into the last stage prior 

 to their emergence from the soil as perfect insects, and 

 great numbers are carried to the ground by the falling 



