No Flies!

Does Tahiti's "Crazy Ant" Hold Secret of Immunity?

IN the “Pacific Islands Monthly” of November we published an article from our Tahiti correspondent, in which he made comment upon the curious and interesting fact that, although flies are a nuisance and a pest in practically all Pacific Territories, there are very few flies in Tahiti. He suggested that Gov ernmental authorities in other territories might be inclined to make an entomo logical investigation to ascertain the cause of Tahiti’s comparative immunity from one of mankind’s greatest curses.

We now have received a letter from Mr. R. Schultz, of Raiatea, French Oceania, who writes under date Decem ber 29, and who says:— “On the subject of the absence of flies in Tahiti, this bit of information might be of interest. It was given to me 14 or 16 years ago by the late Dr. Wilder, when he visited Raiatea, accompanied by Lord Sandwich. I recall that it was on Nov ember 11—they had had lunch at our place, and we observed the two minutes’ silence.

“I enjoyed a most interesting and in structive afternoon, discussing with these men the absence of flies here. Dr. Wilder accounted for the absence of flies by the prevalence here of the ‘crazy ant,’ which he believed preys on the eggs of the larvae of the flies. I regret I do not know the name of this ant. It is con spicuous by the way it jitters about — hence it gets the the name of ‘crazy ant.’

“Well do I remember the pestiferous flies in Fiji during my sojourn there in 1900. To be out without a fly brush— usually made from the end of a cow’s tall—was a misery. If one did not whisk them away thousands would crowd in over one’s shoulders.

“Mosquitoes were ferocious, too, in Fiji, in those days. Even when I sat upon a cane-bottomed chair, and with my nether limbs clothed in dungaree blue, the mos quitoes would bite me through the cane and through the dungaree.

“I hope the foregoing may shed some light upon the reason for the absence of flies in Tahiti.”

Our Tahiti correspondent says that the small ant referred to is well known in Tahiti. He also remarks that there are none of these ants in nearby Rarotonga, and that flies are a curse there.

It is to be hoped that the Government of Fiji, or the High Commission for the Western Pacific may interest itself in this matter. The Fiji Government in past years has shown much enterprise in entomological research and has achieved some notable successes; and if it could find a way of controlling the fly nuisance it would become one of the benefactors of South Seas humanity.