DISTRIBUTION OF INJURIOUS INSECTS 5 



But they are very important, for these cases are distributed 

 from the central markets to stores in small towns and villages. 

 The stores, especially of the latter, are frequently close to 

 gardens and even large orchards. Thus the pests that come 

 over with the fruit may easily reach trees and bushes near by, 

 either by flying or crawling, or by being carried by birds, other 

 insects, or by man. Where the pests in the fruit are active 

 insects, they often crawl to the baskets, that home-grown fruit 

 is sent to the market in, for shelter. In this way many insects 

 are carried back to our plantations, and many insect enemies 

 have thus been spread over the earth. Nursery stock has also 

 played, and does still, an important part in distributing diseases. 

 The most important insect spread by means of fruit is the 

 Codling Moth {Carpocapsa pomonelld). Originally this apple 

 pest seems to have come from Europe. Its life-history is too 

 well known to recapitulate fully here. Suffice it to point out that 

 the larvae, or maggots, occur in the fruit at all stages. When 

 they are quite young they do not show any very marked 

 symptoms of attack ; but a careful examination will always 

 reveal the presence of a small quantity of brown " frass " 

 around the " eye," a sure sign of the maggots' presence. The 

 larvae always leave the fruit when full grown to pupate in 

 convenient shelter, which is normally found under the bark of 

 apple trees. They leave the fruit just the same when it has 

 been picked, and then seek shelter in store-rooms and in the 

 cases and barrels in which the apples are dispatched. Failing 

 this, they will leave the barrels in large numbers when opened 

 and seek shelter elsewhere, such as in market baskets near 

 by. In the latter way they are conveyed to the country. Quite 

 exceptionally the maggots may be carried with nursery stock, 

 they having spun their cocoons in some fork of the branches. 

 That the Codling Moth is sent in numbers from country to 

 country any one can verify for himself by examining apples 

 imported into this country when the barrels are opened in the 

 markets. It must not be imagined that all apples come thus 

 infested. I have not detected any in Tasmanian apples, but 

 have very frequently in American and Canadian. Perhaps most 

 occur in the shipments of Portuguese and Madeira fruits. The 

 result of this means of transit has been that we now have the 

 Codling Moth not only all over Europe, but in America, Canada, 

 Madeira, Teneriffe, Cape Colony, Australia, and New Zealand. 



