INSECTS INJURIOUS TO CEREALS 267 



evidently trying to find an opportunity to deposit their 

 eggs on the contents. In fact, he placed a few rasp- 

 berries in a small quantity of vinegar in a jar with a loose 

 cover. A fortnight afterward he found a number of 

 larvae inside the jar and several pupae attached to its sides. 

 Evidently these pests search for cracks and crevices 

 through which to enter and find their way to their food. 

 Probably the flies often deposit their eggs around the edges 

 of covers to jars, and the maggots, when they hatch, 

 manage to work their way through small openings into the 

 fruit. 



Lintner relates an instance of a species of Drosophila 

 breeding in flour paste. A correspondent wrote him, say- 

 ing : " I send a package containing larvae of a fly very 

 troublesome around my cellar and pantry. These I found 

 in a little paste that I had set aside for a short time. I 

 could not obtain the flies, but presume that they will 

 be produced from the larvae. They are very partial to 

 anything in a state of fermentation, and if my pickled 

 fruit or jam begins to sour, they find it before I do, and 

 frequently the entire top of the fruit seems alive with the 

 larvae, although they never go deep into the jar." The 

 flies emerged, but Lintner judged them to be a new species 

 and not the D. ampelophila, which was probably the species 

 referred to by the correspondent as infesting his pickled 

 fruit. 



Cockerell found the Drosophila flies prevalent in the Salt 

 River Valley of Arizona in orange orchards and he con- 

 cludes that it may be responsible for spreading the black 

 rot of the navel orange. He argues that since the flies 

 breed in the rotting oranges they no doubt become dusted 

 with the spores of the fungus and carry them to the open 



