A IV \\ test ii IK in i nls as to the seriousness of this pest : 



FROGGATT : INSECTS OP AUSTRALIA. 



* The Mediterranean Fruit Fly (C. capitata), first recorded 

 from oranges brought from the Azores to London; was described by 

 ^ladeay in 1826; it has a wide range, and was introduced in New South 

 \Yales some time ago; it is one of the most serious pests that orchardists 

 have to fight. 



LEA : INSECTS AND FUNGUS PESTS OF ORCHARD AND FARM, TASMANIA. 



In Australia there are two very serious pests of fruit that 

 have not yet established themselves in Tasmania. These are the Queens- 

 land Fruit Fly (T. tryoni) and the Mediterranean Fruit Fly (C. capi- 

 tata). They both attack ripening fruit, and in some parts practically 

 destroy the entire fruit crops. 



ANNUAL REPORT, 1908, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, NEW ZEALAND. 

 T. W. KIRK. Biologist., 



Mediterranean Fruit Fly (Ceratitis capitata). This destructive pest 

 is most commonly found in imported fruit, and no variety seems to be 

 immune from its attacks. The latest of its hosts has been shown to be 

 figs. A consignment of figs was condemned on its arrival at Wellington, 

 and from 17 figs 241 flies were bred out. 



DESCRIPTION OF MEDITERRANEAN FRUIT FLY. 

 From Bulletin No. 24, by WALTER FROGGATT, Department of Agriculture, N. S. W. 



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

 has spread has learned to feed upon all kinds of fruit; 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, compara- 

 tively speaking, in the greater part of the fruit-growing districts of 

 Australia, that they are not an important x'actor in the spread of the 

 pest, and are more likely to be infested themselves from an adjacent 

 orchard than to be a center of infection to the orchard. Ceratitis capi- 

 tata has been described in a more or less imperfect manner a great many 

 times, but it is better known from the beautiful colored figures published 

 by Macleay, and again by Breme, when he called it C. kispanica. As 

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

 some confusion exists about the identity of the earlier described species, 

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

 one can grasp with the insect before them. 



Size, four to five mm., about the size of an average house fly, but 

 looking somewhat smaller when dead, because the body shrinks up 

 beneath the thorax. General color, ochreous yellow, lighter on the sides 

 of thorax and basal joints of the antenna 1 . The eyes of the usual red 

 dish-purple tint, with a blackish blotch in the center of the forehead 

 from which spring two stout black bristles, a fine fringe of simila 

 bristles round the hind margin of the head, with some coarser on 



