THE OLIVE 



119 



length as the abdomen, and is a dark red. The point of the borer is 

 black. The male differs from the female by the absence of the bor- 

 er, and by having the posterior margin of the third abdominal ring 

 fringed with black hair turned backwards. The body is one-sixth 

 of an inch in length. 



The date of the most copious hatching of these insects is variable. 

 When the olive has reached its greatest development (about the end 

 of July) the flies just transformed from the pupa appear. Copula- 

 tion then takes place, and the female, choosing the ripest fruit, de- 

 posits her eggs there, usually one egg to each berry. (Fig. 1 a. c. 

 b.b). 



In less than twenty four hours an amber spot will appear on the sur- 

 face of the olive where the egg was deposited, which will turn darker 

 after a little time. The spots can be seen only when the berry is 

 green, as it grows ripe they are hardly discernible. Each female 

 deposits about one hundred eggs. In ten or fifteen days these eggs 

 hatch. The larva, with the hooks of borer, attacks the pulp of 

 the fruit, and then makes its way into the seed, boring a winding 

 tunnel. The pulp of the berry above the tunnel will become reddish 

 wrinkled and transparent, thus showing the presence of the enemy. 

 The larva lives from thirty to forty days. Some change into the 

 pupa form inside of the seed and also into flies, but the greatest 

 number abandon the berry by making an aperture through the j^cr- 

 icarp and change into pupae either in the ground, or in the crevices 

 on the trunk of the tree. 



The flies appear after thirty or forty days. The duration of th / 

 three periods, that is the egg, larva and fly may vary as much as 

 twenty days from the foregoing, as eggs deposited at one time may 

 be hatching for twenty days consecutively, and eggs, larvae, pupae, 

 and flies can be found at the same time. 



The pupae of the last generation do not change in the given time, 

 that is in thirty or forty clays but remain in that state through the 

 spring till the fruit has reached some size and the prosj:>erity of their 



