FRUIT FLIES 45 



decay, cut some of the fruit in halves, and, if the maggots 

 be present, the damage will be disclosed. 



In speaking of trapping and other methods Mr. 

 Froggatt says, "Professor Tagliaferro's method of 

 smearing some of the ripening fruit with honey has been 

 noted before. One of the most practical traps, in which 

 the experimenter tells me he captured numbers of flies 

 every night it is set, has been used by Mr. L. Saunders, 

 of Ryde, New South Wales, who places a lamp or candle 

 in a tin surrounded with a few inches of kerosene oil 

 and water under the infested trees, and though in their 

 normal condition the flies rest at night, the unusual light 

 attracts them, and coming round the light they fall into 

 the oil and are smothered.* Prevention is better than 

 cure, however, and the royal remedy to get rid of the 

 fruit fly maggot is to destroy at once all fallen fruit 

 found to be infested. 



' If all the orchardists would do as a friend of mine 

 did in his orchard at Minto (New South Wales ) : i.e., 

 gather all his late peaches and persimmons (over twenty- 

 five cases) and boil them they would find the first loss 

 the least ; for, as surely as the last autumn brood of fruit 

 fly maggots is allowed to get into the soil of the orchard, 

 unless we have an exceptional winter, so surely will we 

 have the Mediterranean fruit fly playing havoc with the 

 coming year's fruit in the county of Cumberland, New 

 South Wales. Where the ground is well cultivated in 

 winter, the chrysalis will be turned up and have less 

 chance of producing fruit fly, as a very slight injury at 

 this stage of their life will kill them. 



' The insectivorous birds hunt for them, and where 

 flocks of turkeys and fowls are available, if they are 

 given the run of the orchard during the winter, they 

 will scratch over the surface and destroy great numbers. ' ' 



One of the principal matters to be considered, should 

 the fruit flies ever obtain a permanent footing in our 

 State, is to make ourselves acquainted with the symptoms, 



*In captivity the flies are very lively, and are easily attracted by an ordinary gas light. C.F. 



