614 JOURNAL, BOMBAY ^ATUMAL HL'ST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXlV. 



the Entomological collection of the Coimbatore Agricultural College and I 

 do not find any reference made about this fly in anj' Indian publication 

 except in Mr. Fletcher's South Indian Insects and Mr. Lefroy's Indian Insect 

 Pests where only a passing reference is made. 



Under the name Dacus longistylus, Wied, Mr. Froggatt, the Australian 

 Entomologist, records a fruit fly in his report on fruit flies and other 

 injurious insects he noted in difl'erent countries of the world he visited, 

 page 94 (Pub. 1909 by the Department of Agriculture, New South 

 Wales). Comparing the Calotropis fly with his description in that publica- 

 tion, 1 think the subject of this paper may be the same. Mr. Froggatt gives 

 the habitat of this fly as Egypt, evidently the presence of this fly has not 

 been recorded in any publication although I think it may have a wide 

 distribution in S. India. Jt is very widely distributed in Mysore State. 



Life Cycle. — The life of the egg is 4 to 5 days, the larvae 12 to 15 days 

 and the pupse 11 to 12 days and thus the whole period from the egg to the 

 adult is 27 days to a month. There are two broods beginning from the 

 middle of May to the middle of July and by the 2nd week in August the 

 larvse from the 2nd brood pupate in the soil and no fruits are found on the 

 plants for another 3 months. 



Natural Enemies. — A ' Braconid ' parasite of the maggots is observed to 

 move over the rotten Calotropis fruits containing maggots, feeling with the 

 antennae difi'erent portions of the surface and inserting the ovipositor, which is 

 long, into the fruit in the place where the maggots are close to the parch- 

 menteous endocarp. This latter place is more or less in an advanced stage 

 of the maggots. 



Conclusion. — Considering that very little is known of the various species of 

 fruit flies and their host plants in India, I venture to think that the above 

 notes on the Calotrojns trypetid may contribute a little to our knowledge of 

 this very little known but none the less economically impoi'tant family of 

 flies. 



(Bulletin of Entomological Research, September 1915.) 



Ethiopian Fruit Flies of the Genus ' Dacus ' by Pkof. Bbzzi. 



" The attempt to divide the Ethiopian species into the two genera Dacus 

 (S. str.) and Leptovyda seems to be at present not satisfactory, although 

 accepted by Hendel in his recent synopsis of the genera of the Trypaneids 

 (Wein. Entom. Zeitung, XXXIII, 1914, page 74). It is indeed very diflicult 

 to find a dividing line between the species with free and those with fixed 

 abdominal segments, and between the species with a flattened 

 ovipositor and those in which it is cylindrical. Therefore I have not 

 adopted this division in the present paper. On the other hand, 1 have 

 found a better character for dividing the Ethiopian species in the thoracic 

 cheetotaxy. Some species, which are usually of larger size, have three 

 supra-alar bristles, the anterior one being developed like the others ; I 

 propose to call this group Tridacus, subgen. n. The remaining species are 

 smaller, have no anterior supra-alar bristle ; and as they contain D, Olece, 

 I will reserve for these, the name Dacus (S. str.) With this latter group the 

 genus Leptoxyda must be considered synonymous, unless it be regarded as 

 distinct, with the single typical species longistylus. " 



T. V. SUBRAMANIAM, 



Junior Assistant Entomologist, 



Department of Agriculture. 

 Bangalore, 

 2'2nd January 1916. 



