396 
THE MEDITERRANEAN NATURALIST 
4. It furnishes fruit for railway passengers, and 
is a considerable emporium of passenger and goods 
traffic. 
5. As with other towns, little or nothing has 
been effected remedially. 
G. Gardening on scientific principles is forging 
ahead here, and now is the time to pause, think, 
and act. 
Ceuititis is distributed in the transit of fruit 
from place to place. I cannot regard the insect as 
a continuous, long distance flyer, but rather as a 
true type of Colonist, remaining where it alights 
and rearing family into family from generation to 
generation, so that where a lodgment is establi- 
shed here it sticks like a barnacle until displaced 
from the settlement. Mr. Hards of Grahams Town 
adduces an illustration of two orchards being 
divided by a fence. One is gravelled, the other 
overgrown with vegetables and weeds. The 
former provides Mr. Hards, who preserves fruit 
on an extensive scale, with four tons of non-affected 
peaches. The crop in latter orchard bearing just 
the same fruit was an utter failure; all the peaches 
proving maggoty. This fact speaks for itself, 
net so much on behalf of the gravel theory, as to 
prove that Ceratitis is really partial to its chosen 
habitat. How is the insect distributed? Firstly, 
no doubt by human agency. Secondly by larval 
migration. Thirdly by insect flight. We cannot 
stay the last, but we can prevent the two former. 
The fruit in Queenstown, when I was there, 
seemed remarkably free from maggot. Down the 
line at Tylcltn, Waku, <fcc., native girls were selling- 
maggoty apricots by the dozen to passengers in 
the train. These being discarded as unsound are 
thrown here, there, and everywhere and much of 
the decaying, affected fruit fouls the carriages. 
The grubs drop out, jump or spring about, bury 
t hem selves in crevices and when hatched, are 
compelled to seek food where instinct guides. 
Hence distribution between Queenstown, Aliwal, 
King William’s Town, East London, and up to the 
t ree State. Queen’s Town was punished during 
the latter end o r the season. Whence came the 
maggots? Cannot this system of fruit vending be 
stayed, and a certain means' of dispersal be wiped 
out? J have also found the larvae between the 
cushions and backs of carriage partitions. I have 
also found the pupae, in decayed early oranges 
stacked in a fruiterer’s shop. Although the grub 
cau only spring, at most, a foot at a time, it is 
enabled by successive leaps to travel a fair distance. 
I have seen four or five emerge from a plum, 
whilst it still adhered to the bough and after 
remaining quite stationary fifteen or twenty 
minutes on the rind skip trustfully to mother 
earth and find a place of repose. I do not 
think it is essential therefore for the maggot’s 
safety that the fruit should fall, and when 
grounded, offer an opportunity to escape and 
burrow beneath. If so. of what utility is this 
power of springing? Corroborating this surmise, 
Mr. Geo. Kiug of Bedford says “At times they 
drop on the ground before the fruits reach the 
ground, but not always.’ 
There is a small grub, closely resembling the 
peach-maggot in its habit of dragging or ripping 
the body of an apple, until it becomes pulpy — 
which has been, and may easily be mistaken for 
that species in the larval condition. We gene- 
rally find it in decaying fruit, or that which has 
been previously parasited by such insects as 
Heliothis Armiger, Hub, or Carpocc/psa Pomona , 
the dreaded Codling moth, but it has been 
despatched to me from GraaiT Reinet, attacking 
an apricot before its fall to mother earth. I have 
previously referred to this grub, which was iden- 
tified as Soronia-nov. sp? by Mr. L. Peringuey, 
who states that it had been positively seen by one 
of his correspondents in the act of depositing, 
and I have myself repeatedly mistaken a young 
grup for Ceratitis as their destructive economies 
are similar. 
Decaying fruit already parasited, and abandoned 
when fallen to the ground, contains many scaveng- 
ing or clearance fly and beetle larvae, or even 
imagines a perfect insect. I should have thought 
this scavenging principle was part and parcel of 
Soronia's mission in life. Allied species are usually 
considered to favour the bark of trees, galls, and 
decaying vegetable matter. A very small beetle, 
Carpophilus spec. ( fam . Nitidulidw ), is commonly 
found busily working amongst the decaying and 
rotten fruits. Mr. Peringuey, who also named 
this species for me, says,: “Found occasionally in 
decaying fruit and also, but seldom, on the flowers 
of the banana.” My experience in the Eastern and 
Midland districts is that our decaying fruits are 
