THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 89 



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Bailey had about 10 acres of trees, and it was pitiful to see the 

 fruit, and not a small percentage either, ruined by the pest. The 

 insect is about the size of the common house fly, and is of a 

 brownish colour. It is very nimble, and in the early morning can 

 be seen running about the fruit, the female depositing an egg, 

 or perhaps two eggs, under the skin. The fruits selected are the 

 ones just ripening ; the larvse, hatching in a few hours, commence 

 to eat through the flesh, and all the tissue near their tracks 

 becomes discoloured and putrid in a very brief time. Fruit 

 apparently sound may be picked from the tree one afternoon and 

 next day is unfit for use. The fly is not found in plums only, for 

 apples, pears, persimmons, bananas, and oranges are also within 

 its tastes. But this is not the same fly causing damage in the 

 oranges around Sydney. The southern insect is a smaller species, 

 Halterophora capilata ; the name of the larger is Tephritis tryoni. 

 Notwithstanding its great scope of action the Queensland Fruit 

 Fly is successfully . resisted by one kind of plum, namely, the 

 Golden Heart. There must be something in the fruit not to the 

 liking of the pest, for of all the varieties of plums in Mr. Bailey's 

 orchard this was left untouched. Another variety, the Kelsey, 

 can be saved because of its aptitude, uncommon with plums, to 

 ripen in storage. It can be picked when changing colour, and so 

 the Fruit Fly is cheated of its spoil. Another very destructive 

 insect pest is the small beetle, Monolepta rosea, called the Peach 

 Ladybird. It moves about in swarms, and attacks both the 

 leaves and the fruit, sucking the nourishment from the leaf and 

 tunnelling into the fruit, which bears the appearance of having 

 been perforated by a charge of shot. 



The citrus trees are badly affected by two pests. In spring- 

 time the fat green larvse of the Papilio anactus denude the trees 

 of their young leaves ; and the large brown Orange Bug, Oncoscelis 

 subsiventris, punctures the fruit, raising unsightly galls on the 

 skin. These large bugs are very common and very disagreeable. 

 When you approach a tree they make helter-skelter for cover, and, 

 like an iguana, keep on the other side of the branch to which you 

 are. The trees of the large yellow guava are stripped in places 

 of leaves by the Case Moth, Clania lewinii. 



I shall now endeavour to describe more fully what the " Big 

 Scrub " vegetation consists of. There are no eucalypts, for the 

 gum trees were left behind in the forest country, but their places 

 are filled by trees even surpassing them in size. Splendid speci- 

 mens of the Teak and Mountain Ash are to be seen towering with 

 the Fig and Buoyong trees to some 150 feet or more. The soil is 

 so fertile that these tremendous trees can live and thrive close to 

 each other, while their branches, intertwining, serve as a roof and 

 shade to protect the smaller plants beneath. The scrub may be 

 divided under three heads. Firstly, there are the large trees. 



