THE MEDITERRANEAN NATURALIST 
397 
seldom to be found without it, and it is a true friend 
of man, assisting in preserving an universal sanita- 
ry equilibrium, by removing health-destroying 
effluvia, arising from obnoxious gases caused by 
putrefaction. I have this species also from Natal. 
Sound fruits falling to earth rapidly degenerate 
into a reeking mass of insect life. We find several 
Coleopterous and eipterous insects engaged in the 
task of removing deleterious debris. I mention 
this, as there is an apparent danger of our mista- 
king friends for enemies, and vice versa— & result 
we are endeavouring to obviate. The larva of 
Soronia. is dirty grey, tinted with pink in mature 
specimens: dorsal area distinct and finely striated 
with dark grey: on each segment two large irre- 
gularly shape black spots, and smaller ones on 
either spiraeular line. Head conspicuous, shining, 
two large colliding black spots above the face 
and black spot between horns. Anal flap has a 
bifid, horny process protruding from center of seg- 
ment; length about |-inch. To an inexperienced 
eye the larva of Soronia might easily be mistaken 
for Ceratitis. 
The greatest difficulty in the pleasant task of 
peeping into the private affairs of Ceratitis , has 
been to find the egg. Hours upon hours have 
been devoted to slicing up fruits of various kinds 
into their strips and separating the tissues, cove- 
ring them with water, oft repeated, placed upon a 
glass dish. I had looked for agranular oval parti 
cle of floating matter, looked in vain, and foolishly. 
Common sense should have thought that the very 
construction of the parent mother’s ovipositor— 
which is mentioned in its proper place — precluded 
the idea of a rounded object. I had seen the fly 
scores of times, — as I imagined — in the act of lay- 
ing her eggs. My imagination was not defective, 
but my slicing system was at fault. In a narrow 
lane adjoining my house there exists, as must have 
existed for many years, a solitary peach tree under- 
neath whose shade I have spent spare time in 
watching the fly at work. One stout female demon- 
strates quite clearly that a crisis in her life has arri- 
ved. She is fussing about from place to place, bough 
to bough, leaf to leaf and there she goes plump on 
on the top of a fine peach. One, two, three stab 
with her ovipositor. Off to another, repeating 
the process twice again. I take the three peaches 
into my study and carve out each visibly perfora- 
ted portion and separate the particles as before.” 
And I find them at last, the eggs of Ceratitis , oc- 
curing in millions yet to my knowledge never be- 
fore known. After completing this interesting 
discovery to my satisfaction, I forwarded one or 
two specimens to Dr. Chute for examination, and 
I cannot add nothing to the diagnostic solution 
given by my confrere, to what had appeared no 
easy problem. He writes : “You sent me a little 
glass vial, and asked me to look for the egg. I ex- 
amined it carefully by microscope, and there was 
a case with a maggot fitting tightly inside, ft 
appeared to me ready to hatch. These flies cannot 
have eggs like moths and butterflies which are de- 
posited some time before they hatch, for the na- 
ture of the tissues in which they are laid would, I 
should imagine, preclude the possibility of tiie 
containing larva living. May it not be that these 
flies, after impregnation, retain within the ab- 
domen the fecundated eg, which within the 
maternal body becomes developed nearly to 
hatching point, when the mother seeks the 
ripening fruit, and with her formidable ovipositor 
— a tube sharpened at end - deposits the larva case, 
with its nearly full grown maggot, which almost 
immediately cuts its way out with the sharp 
hooks?” With regard to the immediate hatching 
I found the eggs aud infant larva together. The 
earliest stage, then of Ceratitis is a longitudinal 
centre bent, whitish, Isabella-shaded, shrivelly, 
torpedo-shaped, embryonary sac. Dr. Chute fur- 
ther reported on a small consignment of female 
flies as follows — 
“\ r ou sent me a parcel of three females, two 
were perfect, and one had the abdomen missing 
These flies I put into a test-tube, and was boiling 
them in preparation, when I noticed some little 
white bodies floating about. These when the 
fluid was at rest sank to the bottom, and I 
withdrew them with a pipette. Upon examination 
in a watch glass they were five in number, opaque 
milky-white, long, ovoid, torpedo-shaped bodies 
blunt, pomtecl at one end, the other end drawn 
out slightly to a nipple. The contents were dis- 
organised, but in the dark granular contents 
were at one end conical, and at its apex were 
visible two little dark objects, very like the 
curved, sickle-shaped cutting-hooks of the larva 
I then examined in a watch glass the three flies 
