No Flies In

Tahiti

Entomological Mystery Worthy of Investigation

From Our Own Correspondent

Papeete, Oct. 19.

VISITORS from countries where the Musca Domestica is a tribulation to housewives and a problem to health authorities, remark on the almost total absence of this pest at Papeete. That there exists at Tahiti some enemy which destroys the house fly is attested by the following circumstances.

Some years ago, a steamer in distress came into Papeete harbour. She was loaded with wheat, which had taken fire and was smouldering. The holds were flooded and the fire extinguished. The damp wheat was unloaded and piled up on shore at Fare Ute.

From this decaying mass of grain came a plague of house flies such as the island had never known. Later, the wheat was taken to a nearby sugar plantation and used as fertiliser. The atmosphere over and adjacent to the plantation was cloudy with myriads of house flies.

This continued for, perhaps, a month and, as suddenly as they had appeared, the legions of house flies vanished.

The market places of most tropical countries (and those of temperate climes as well) are the happy hunting-grounds of un-numbered millions of house flies— especially when fish is there for sale.

At the Papeete market a house fly is a curiosity.

No one has ever taken the trouble to learn why.

EDITORIAL NOTE: This curious ana interesting fact should be of value to entomologists. Is Tahiti, by any chance, the home of a parasite which, introduced to other countries, would control or wipe out one of humanity’s greatest curses?

The thing certainly should be worthy of investigation.

Mrs. Mabel Dexter, wife of Mr. Henry Dexter, formerly of Milne Bay, Eastern Papua, died in England on September 3. after a long illness. She was formerly Mrs.

Martin Staples, and she married Mr.

Dexter in England a little over a year ago.