427 
THE MEDITERRANEAN NATURALIST 
“Mark, while he moves amid the sunny beam, 
O’er his soft wings the varying lustres gleam. 
Launched into air, on purple plumes he soars, 
Gay nature's face with wanton glance explores, 
Proud of his varying beauties wings his way, 
And spoils the fairest flowers, himself more 
fair than they.” 
Haworth . 
Having admitted there is little scope for us in 
attacking the ovum, or the larva, whilst the fruit 
is still suspended on the tree, it will afterwards be 
seen that we can take advantage of the pupal or 
quiescent stage, and come down upon our sleeping 
enemy with effect. 
The imago is thus described by Professor 
Westwood (1): — 
“General colour fulvous buff, with the thorax 
grey spotted with black, with an undulated 
white line at the base, and two pale grey bars 
across the abdomen; the basal half of the wing is 
much variegated with minute black dots and 
streaks, with a buff and ashy cloud near the base 
another across the middle, another along the ex- 
tremity of the fore margin, dotted with black, and 
an ashy bar on the inner margin. The male 
is singularly distinguished by having two slender 
filaments arising between the eyes, knotted at the 
tips, a peculiarity which we believe is possessed 
by no other dipterous insect, and which is wanting 
in the female. In the specimen sent me this 
peculiar growth might be exactly described, in the 
words o l Macquart, as a filament terminated by a 
rhomboidal plate. (2) When I first reared them in 
my breeding-cage, the following points of structure 
and economy impressed me forcibly: — For example 
— the male: — 
1. Its magnificent irradiating milky tinged azure 
eyes, — a sight to behold; (this is of course — a 
sketch at a distance, magnified ) 
2. The peculiar rhomboidal-platecl filaments on 
the head, so tersely described by Macquart. 
3. The yellowish white conspicuous face. 
4. Wing lustre, and singular manner in which 
the costal margin is slightly reflexed near the tho- 
(1) Gardeners’ Chronicle, ''‘Orange Fly ,” Sepit. 
9 , 1848 . 
(2) Pelaphora capitata, Tripeta capitata, “ Wied 
v. A uss. Zweiji ., No. 3.” u Histoire Naturellc des 
Diptere s” Macquart , vol. page -CL 
rax and the tip of the wing is never raised above the 
plane of the head, declining always from the joint. 
5. Yellow body, which darkens after copulation 
almost to rufustint. 
G. A persistent habit of wing-wiping with its 
legs is perhaps applicable to most of the Diptera . 
7. Wing markings and coloration are stronger 
and more pronounced than in the female. 
The thorax very much reminds me of that of 
Acherontia atropos , Curt. — Death’s head hawk 
moth, whose markings, are supposed to resemble 
a skull and cross bones, a most harmless and inof- 
fensive insect, purely suctorial, yet generally be- 
lieved in the Colony to be armed with a sting and 
and therefore highly dangerous. The dots and 
streaks at base of wing lend a pleasing break to 
what would otherwise appear an unremarkable 
neuration, plain and simple. Dr. Chute very 
aptly describes the ovipositor of female as “a 
poem” and the head and tongue “a strain of hea- 
venly music.” If so the rainbow must have been 
inspired after a private view of citriperda’s 
eyes. The ovipositor of the female is a most 
powerful weapon, it is a sword within a fccab- 
bard — a concealed auger, and the orifice of detach- 
ment is situated below the point. To regard the 
magnified representation of the lancet without a 
knowledge of proprietorship, we should lie pardo 
ned in mistaking it for an exquisite little bit of 
Sheffield workmanship rather than the entrance 
piercer of a fly’s ovisac. Since my reference to 
the ovum, I have discovered an excellent method 
of enticing oviposition, viz: — By slicing a piece of 
pear and suspending the greater portion to the top 
of the breeding cage; flies are attracted and indu- 
ced to arrange their mundane affairs. They are 
diurnal, sun-loving insects reposing mostly beneath 
the leaves of trees by night and are very seldom 
seen in copulation. Soon after connection, the 
male sickens as if attacked by some severe rheu- 
matic paralytic affection, or temporary insanity, 
and after a few senseless, and objectless flights, 
tumbles to the ground and dies. It is not eas} to 
ascertain the time occupied in the various changes, 
as they vary extensively according to the na- 
ture of food-host and circumstances generally. 
The following estimate may be taken af a fairly 
accurate average, in excess rather than in defi- 
ciency. 
