BLUEBERRY INSECTS IN MAINE. 261 



in limited numbers from haws, Crataegus sp., collected in the 

 vicinity of Orono. 



For one very peculiar fact of distribution the writer can offer 

 no very satisfactory explanation. In Maine, although as an 

 apple pest Rhagoletis pomonella is widely distributed throughout 

 the state, and although blueberries are found commonly every- 

 where in the state, as an enemy of the blueberry Rhagoletis 

 pomonella seems to be entirely restricted to the blueberry bar- 

 rens of Washington County. The writer has made a great 

 many careful collections of blueberries around Orono during 

 the past 3 summers without finding so much as a trace of the 

 work of this insect. In the orchard in the rear of his home in 

 Orono are 2 sweet apple trees which for years have served as 

 a trap for the apple maggot, the fruit being so badly infested as 

 to be worthless, and two pastures full of blueberries lie within 

 an eighth of a mile of these trees, yet the blueberries are en- 

 tirely free from any attack by Rhagoletis, nor has the writer 

 seen any indication that Rhagoletis was at work on the blue 

 berry elsewhere in Penobscot County. Careful collections at 

 Auburn, and in the Katahdin region, and more hasty ones at 

 Kineo, Searsport, Mount Desert, and elsewhere, bear out the 

 conclusion stated in the first part of this paragraph. ]\Ioreover, 

 the same would appear applicable to the huckleberries ; it is 

 true that they are not common in the State, yet they seem to he 

 infested by Rhagoletis only on the blueberry plains. 



Owing to the frequent burning of the barrens, the soil does 

 not become exhausted and the berries there are much larger and 

 juicier than elsewhere in the state. It is not impossible that only 

 in these larger berries does the maggot find sufficient food for 

 its growth and thus is restricted to this region. The writer's 

 observations have been entirely confined to the low bush blue- 

 berries, and he has not had an opportunity to examine the high 

 bush blueberries which are naturally somewhat larger; it is not 

 improbable that when the high bush berries in different parts 

 of the state are examined they will be found more or less abun- 

 dantly infested with Rhagoletis elsewhere than in Washington 

 County. 



It will be recalled that the flies bred from blueberries were so 

 much smaller than those bred from apples that at a glance they 

 could be distinguished readily. Although the apple maggot was 



