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



method for combating it is developed. In the Bermuda Islands the 

 peach industry has been a ruined one for many years. MacLeay 

 and Westwood wrote, during the early part of the nineteenth century, 

 of the increased cost to the inhabitants of London of citrus fruits 

 imported from the Azores as a result of fruit-fly attack. Lounsbury 

 and Mally, of South Africa, consider G. capitata one of the greatest 

 drawbacks to the development of the fruit industry in Cape Colony, 

 and have stated that during certain favorable seasons large areas 

 of apricots, figs, pears, plums, apples, and quinces were almost 

 all affected. Hooper, writing from Southern France, states in 1904 

 that, as a result of fruit-fly attack, what was once an important and, 

 lucrative industry was at that time little more than a haptv ard 

 traffic in fruit casually produced. In 1903 Compere found that peach 

 growing about Barcelona, Spain, had been so demoralized by fruit-fly 

 attack that few trees were being grown and that the market was 

 supplied by fruit from the Balearic Islands, while at Cadiz the fruit 

 merchants no longer cared to handle peaches owing to the fact that 

 they were badly infested. At Malaga, according to Compere, the 

 bitter Seville oranges are seriously affected. Wickens, writing in 

 1913 in Western Australia, states that the fruit industry there was 

 suffering not only directly as a result of the actual loss of fruit in- 

 fested, but indirectly through the restricted plantings in districts 

 where the fruit fly was abundant. * About Perth, where late peaches 

 can be grown to perfection, very few are being cultivated; instead, 

 many trees have been cut down. Other instances of damage caused 

 to citrus crops in southern Europe, South America, Africa, and 

 Australia might be added which would impress one, unfamiliar with 

 the ravages of C. capitata, that it is a very serious pest. Its economic 

 importance is so great that every effort should be taken to prevent 

 its establishment in new territory. 



INJURY. 



NATURE OF INJURY. 



The injury caused by the Mediterranean fruit fly is confined to the 

 fruits of the hosts attacked. The foliage, stems, and roots are not 

 attacked so far as investigators have been able to determine. No 

 better idea of the nature of the injury caused by the fruit fly can be 

 gained than from an examination of the illustrations. The larvae 

 hatching from the eggs deposited just beneath the epidermis burrow 

 their way throughout the pulp and, as they develop, cause by their feed- 

 ing, and through the development of fungi and bacteria, decayed areas 

 which vary in extent according to the age and number of the larvae 

 and the ripeness of the host. Since the larvae most frequently burrow 

 at once to the pit or core of the fruit, they are able to feed for some 

 time before their work is evident from the surface; thus peaches and 



