THE MEDITERRANEAN NATURALIST 
3H9 
We may take it finally, then that there is no 
fixed law as to whether the eggs are laid in green 
or ripening fruit, although the balance of opinion 
amongst fruit growers favours that latter theory. I 
have inspected a peach tree in Cradock without 
discovering attack ; whilst a week later most of the 
fruit is touched and maturing larvae conspicuous. 
Therefore, the young maggots must have been con- 
tained in the green peaches, which also must have 
held the ova, when still more juvenile. Besides, 
the very structure and nature of a female’s the ovi- 
positors strikes one is being too sturdy, simple to 
be used in piercing a weak spot or ripening matter. 
By taking a maggot away from a semi-ripe peach, 
and placing it in a hole cut in a hurt green one, we 
shall find it burrow downwards and inwards in a 
twinkling, and there remain and feed until adult. 
Or by slicing a green peach into small portions and 
placing them in water upon a glass dish, very ma- 
ny minute larvae, and even discarded skins, can be 
discovered, leading us almost to believe that at 
certain seasons all peaches are attacked more or 
less, and by reason only of their minuteness do 
they escape observation. Mr. J. P>. Hellier says ; 
‘‘The maggots are never found in green apricotsi 
such as are used for making pies ” Perhaps the 
foregoing experiment was never attempted. Cer- 
tain it that the worms are most often to be found 
in ripening fruit. 1 admit the importance of this 
concession. Mr. Hellier says: The perfect insect 
may be seen flying about very swiftly, and deposi- 
ting some half-dozen eggs in a fruit.” With apricots 
and lesser fruits this is perfectly correct, but the 
female fly adapts herself to circumstances and in 
lar ger fruits, such as pears, will deposit more in 
proportion. In the garden of Mrs. Phillips (Cra- 
dock), from one magnificent saffron pear I extracted 
no less the than seventeen maggots, and one large 
fruit held two broods, affecting it on both sides. 
Most of the larvm ultimately find their way to the 
stone of an apricot or peach : some drive down im- 
mediately after hatching from ova: others, as if 
deterred by acrid premonition, work all around 
some selected spot. The excrement of a grup 
would do more to foul fruit-tissues than the simple 
feeding on it. The grub is fairly hardy and active, 
and after finding a likely grave for transition, 
passes into the pupal stage within a couple of 
days. Where soil is of a clayey, cakey nature, 
| rising up in cracked flakes from the surface, there 
is the favourite hiding place for the maggots. 
They cover an extensive range and are often 
found away from their tree host, so that the roots 
may often be examined for specimens without 
result. This answers a hundred interrogators who 
ask : “Where does the chrysalis get to? I cannot 
find it in fallen fruit. It isn’t in the bark of the 
tree. I have dug at the roots and never found one.” 
No, we might dig for a year and never find one 1 I 
find it difficult sometimes to discover where the 
imps have stowed themselves away in either my 
large outside vivarium or house breeding-cage 
Unfortunatly this fact removes that which would 
otherwise prove an important means of destruction 
-digging at the roots or applying chemical ma- 
nure, sousing with insecticides, or upheaving and 
burning dried leaves. I once heard described a 
man’s fingerswehich were attenuate and knuckle- 
prominent as “sausage skins stuffed with buttons.” 
The white slimy skin of our maggot seems natural- 
ly provided as a sac to cover a lot of disarranged 
and bulgy, mobile intestines, and the worm is hap- 
piest when most externally slippery. The late 
Professor J.O. Westwood in his paper* on this 
“Orange fly” (Gardener's Chronicle , Sep. 9, 1884y 
thus describe the maggot: — “The larva is a white 
fleshy grub destitute of legs, very similar to that 
of the celery-stem fly, and like it it possesses two 
small contiguous hooks at the front of the body, 
which it alternately protrudes and retracts, 
thereby tearing the delicate membrane in which 
the drops of juice are contained. The body is gra- 
dually attenuated in front, very distinctly articu- 
lated; the anterior segments including the head, 
are retractile. There are generally several of these 
larvae in each orange, and when removed and \ 'a- 
ced upon a fiat surface, they have the power of 
springing to a considerable distance, in the same 
manner as the well-known cheese-maggot. When 
full grown they eat their way out of the orange 
and undergo the change to the pupa state on the 
outside.” 
(To be continued).' 
Colours of Ancient Egypt. 
The pigments used by the ancient Egyptian 4000 
to 6000 years ago were few and almost all repre- 
