274 



THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM MAGAZINE. 



white, reflected enough hght to reveal 

 the colour of the red thorax against 

 the black elytron. 



One specimen at the end of the lan- 

 tern-tly season contrived to get herself 

 where she was not wanted, and, later, 

 A\'hen retiring for the night, I found her 

 still ■■ luminescing "" but enveloped 

 within a robe of silk and resting upon 

 the dressing table whereon the spider 

 had ejected her. The next morning 

 she was still in this condition but dead, 

 and the A\hole area where the lumin- 

 escence took place was quite bare of the 

 web : it was quite easy to slip the ])eetle 

 out of her silk night-dress through this 

 aperture . 



Whether this absence of web on the 

 underside of the last t^'o segments of the 

 abdomen was due to the spider's re- 

 fusing to face the luminescent area, or 

 whether the slow combustion that is 

 supposed to take place was sufficiently 

 strong to burn away the web, I am 

 sorry to say I cannot tell, for this was 

 the last of the season, and nearly a 

 year must pass before more can be 

 procured to exjieriment with. 



THE W^AY or THE FRUIT-FLY. 



The peach tree which stands on the 

 slope to the river is completely hidden 

 from the house ; it is only a small tree, 

 but it was prodigiously laden with fruit 

 that needed but a week to ripen. A 

 basketful was picked for stewing pur- 

 poses, and one or two when opened 

 were found to be infested with fruit-fly 

 maggots. Two days later a second 

 basketfiil was picked and oiily one in 

 ten found free from the maggot. Three 

 days later not one peach of the whole 

 remainder of the croj) could be found, 

 they had all disappeared. Such a 

 wholesale disappearance was not due 

 to the activities of the fly, nor yet 

 to flying-foxes : it was a thief with the 

 best of intentions that had gathered 

 the lot. and who ever it was that had 

 our fruit he was himself ' had."" 



The sudden raid on. and complete 

 ruin of a crop by the fruit -fly. is typical 

 of a fruit -fly attack, for within a few days 

 the whole are infected, even although no 



fly may be noticed as in this case. The 

 flies have been observed to attack almost 

 every kind of fruit, many of which do 

 not succumb to the evil. After the 

 episode of the peaches, the flies invaded 

 the mangoes, and the fruits attacked 

 were marked for further observation, 

 but in no case did the maggots develop 

 therein, showing that mangoes have 

 properties that make them resistant to 

 the fly. Thick-skinned lemons, known 

 locally as bush -lemons, are also resistant 

 stock, as the flies cannot pierce the 

 skin with their ovipositor, though 

 they are often seen attempting it. 

 Some thin-skinned fruits such as Jaji- 

 anese plums may have a different but 

 quite as mechanical a method of 

 resistance. This plum is a remark- 

 ably juicy variety, which property is its 

 safeguard against the fruit fly, for, when 

 the skin is punctured the juice squirts 

 out and the egg and ovipositor are 

 ejected on a succulent globule. 



THE SLEEP OF THE NATIVE BEE. 



Have you ever seen a native bee 

 asleep ? The female is supposed to 

 retire within the hole or burrow and 

 sleep upon her job. Not so with the 

 male, however, for this wanderer spends 

 the night out, sleeping along the high- 

 ways and byways of the bush. The 

 males of some bees collect together for 

 company, and they can be seen cluster- 

 ing on a twig, blade of grass, or other 

 support they may choose, their numbers 

 per cluster sometimes reaching up to 

 hundreds. 



Near the front entrance to the garden 

 there is a wooden archway abandoned 

 to the growth of wild nature and the 

 remains of a fernery it once harboured. 

 It is from here that the tumbling down 

 fence with its old - man - of - the - sea 

 creeper has its beginning, and it is at 

 this place nightly, as long as their 

 short span of life lasts, that the males 

 of a species of Anthrophora collect for 

 their nightly bivouac. 



But there is one curious habit about 

 this bee that I have never before noted 

 in a sleeping insect. Doubtless you 

 would expect, as I did, that the bee 

 would cling by its claws to its twig and 



