20 BULLETIN 536, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



chase by the traveling public of much fruit which later, when found 

 to be infested, is discarded, often many miles from the point of origin. 

 Bairstow as long ago as 1893 records the selling of infested apricots 

 by native girls to passengers on trains about to leave for interior 

 points of South Africa. The spread of the pest in Australia has 

 been most rapid along the -railroads. French, in 1896, states that 

 peaches imported by rail into Victoria from Sydney were infested 

 and Newman states that in Western Australia many instances have 

 come under his observation in which infested fruits thrown from the 

 windows of coaches of both suburban and country trains were re- 

 sponsible for introductions into districts previously free from attack. 

 In the Hawaiian Islands the spread from village to village and from 

 island to island unquestionably has been hastened by the habit of the 

 poorer population of carrying small lots of fruit in their travels, either 

 for food while en route or as presents for their friends. Much of this 

 fruit is more or less infested, and when an attempt to eat it proves the 

 interior to be infested and unpalatable, it is discarded either along 

 the road or at the point of destination. The inspection service of the 

 Hawaiian Board of Agriculture has shown that even the most stringent 

 regulations have not prevented the movement of infested fruits 

 from point to point by man in automobiles, in carriages, or on foot. 



POSTAL AND EXPRESS PACKAGES. 



The interception at Washington, D. C, by officers of the Federal 

 Horticultural Board of a package from Mexico containing a living 

 pupa of the papaya fruit fly (Toxotrypana curvicauda Gerst.) attached 

 to an unknown vine, and of a living adult of the olive fruit fly (Dacus 

 oleae Rossi) and a dead adult of another species of fruit fly, apparently 

 Dacus semispharens Becker, in a package of olive seed, 28 days after 

 it had been mailed in South Africa, indicates the possibilities for 

 spread by means of parcel post. The persistency with which unin- 

 formed persons insist upon including among bananas and pineapples 

 intended for shipment by express from Hawaii to the mainland 

 United States small contraband host fruits has demonstrated fully 

 the danger of express packages as carriers of. 0. capitata. 



NURSERY STOCK. 



A fruit-fly pupa (species imknown) was found at Auckland, New 

 Zealand, in the soil about the roots of a plant imported from Australia. 

 Newman has called attention to the danger of spreading the fruit fly 

 in the pupa stage, in the soil about the roots of nursery stock grown 

 beneath host fruit trees. 



PACKING MATERIALS. 



Larvae developing in fruits packed in wooden crates or in bags 

 often pupate against the sides of such containers. Second-hand 



