SPECIAL REPORT FOR YEAR I9I4. IQ 



Accordingly the barrens were visited and about the first of 

 August, flies with banded wings were found to be common 

 about the blueberry bushes. Much to the surprise of the ento- 

 mologists at the Station these flies proved to be the same species 

 as our common apple pest Rhagoletis pomonella, the larva of 

 which is popularly known as the "railroad worm" on account 

 of the trails it makes under the skins of light colored apples. 

 After the middle of August it was not a difficult matter to find 

 infested berries on the plains. When the maggots are small, 

 the fruit attacked cannot be distinguished from a sound one, 

 but usually when they have attained a fair size the fruit 

 becomes very much shrivelled. An infested berry can easily be 

 told by touch, for it feels soft and mushy, and this is the surest 

 external indication that it has been attacked. 



When the maggot becomes full fed it leaves the berry by an 

 irregularly shaped hole through the skin and pupates in the 

 ground just as the insect does after leaving an apple. 



Maggoty berries were brought to the Experiment Station and 

 cared for in order that the adult insects might be reared. They 

 formed pupae late in the summer which normally would have 

 remained in the ground in that stage until another summer. By 

 keeping them under warmer conditions, however, their develop- 

 ment was forced and in early spring adult flies began to emerge 

 from the pupa case which proved to be the same species as 

 those taken on the barrens the summer of 191 3, thus establish- 

 ing beyond a doubt the fact that in Maine the maggot which' 

 breeds in blueberries is the common apple maggot, Rhag,oletis 

 pomonella. 



This fly is smaller when developing in blueberries than when 

 it grows in the apple, but otherwise there is no difference. This 

 fact is not surprising as it is common with insects which feed 

 inside vegetable matter to have their size dependent upon the 

 amount of the food supply. The apple maggot has been reported 

 from the huckleberry in New Jersey and Connecticut but this 

 record from Maine is the first account of its accepting the blue- 

 berr}^ as a habitation. 



It is too soon to predict what can be done by way of control. 

 While the maggots were common on the plains, it should be 

 stated that the blueberries grow so profusely that only a small 

 percentage of the fruit was infested. There seems to be no 



