634 
blPTEKA. 
lasting about a week. We have found that Citronella oil has an 
extremely strong attraction for the males of the destructive Peach-fly 
{Dams persicce), and that this is probably due to the females having 
the same smell, which we have ascertained to be the case. Details as to 
habits and the periods of the different stages vary in different species. 
The larvae (Pl. LXYI and fig. 418) are of the type usual among 
Acalyptrates, blunt behind with rather conspicuous stigmata, and 
tapering to the head end which is provided with black mouth-hooks, 
the anterior stigmata showing as a curved row of ten or a dozen small 
bead-like rounded projections. The colour of the larva is dirty whitish 
or pale yellow, and the skin is smooth and shining, the longitudinal 
tracheae usually clearly seen beneath it. The larvae can hop in the same 
way as Sepsid larvae by fixing the mouth-hooks in a notch just below 
the anus and then uncurling the body with a sudden jerk. Preventive 
measures consist of various devices to protect the fruit from the ovipo¬ 
siting female, such as netting, earthing up the young fruit, or protect¬ 
ing them with paper screens until the skin has grown thick and tough. 
Remedial measures are useless unless begun in the earliest stages of an 
attack, and consist of the prompt destruction of all affected fruit by 
boiling, submerging, or burying the fruit at least eighteen inches below 
the surface of the ground and firmly stamping down the earth with 
which the hole is filled in. Though most if not all the Trypetidce pass 
their larval stage in the fruits, stems, or leaves of plants, the two genera. 
Dacus and Ceratitis (the latter a genus with banded wings, the thorax 
and base of the wings spotted with black, which has been recorded as 
damaging oranges in North Bombay), seem to comprise all the species 
at present known to rank as real pests. The bulk of the species of 
Trypetidce are a good deal smaller than the fruit-flies, and are generally 
greyish in colour with beautiful iridescent eyes and prettily-spotted 
wings. We have seen representatives of the genera Trypeta , Urellia, 
TJrophora, Tephritis and Rhahdochoeta, but the Indian members of the 
family as a whole have yet to be worked out, and there are probably 
many genera. The student of Trypetidce will find most information 
in the various writngs of Loew, especially “ Die Europaischen 
Bohrfliegen,” and the “ Monographs on the Diptera of N. America ” 
published by the Smithsonian Institution. 
