THE SCIENTIFIC NAME OF THE CHERRY FRUIT-FLY

Extract

In September, 1899, I published an account of a new cherry pest, which I called the cherry fruit-fly (Bulletin 172, Cornell Experiment Station). As stated on pp.31 and 32 of this bulletin, the identity of the adult insect insect not then been established, although the evidence strongly indicated that it was the fly known as Rhagoletis cingulata, Loew. I kept my breeding cages containing the hibernating puparia of the insect in the warm greenhouse or insectary all winter, and on March 9th, 1900, the first cherry fruit-fly emerged. It did not disappoint my expectxtions, for it demonstrated beyond further doubt that this new cherry-fruit pest is Rhagoletis cingulata, Loew. By May 31st nine more fo the files had emerged, and then cherries near the insectary were nearly half grown. The flies continued to emerge until July 11th in my cages, and on June 30th I received word from Geneva that they were abundant about the trees where the fruit was ripening. This correspondent caught quite a number of the files with sticky fly-paper hung on a shingle in a tree; he said they seemed to be attracted to any bright-coloured thing like a new straw that.