Fig. 35.—Figs packed by string method (reduced).
A second and serious source of infection is at the village depots. Before the figs arrive, there seem to be no specimens of the Ephestia in the buildings; but with their arrival the moth appears, and so favourable is the shelter from the heat and the wind, and so abundant is the supply of figs as sack after sack is emptied on to the floor, that soon the moth is more abundant in the depots than amongst the ‘serghi,’ and the wonder is that a single fig escapes infestation. Fortunately, the time spent in the depots is short, often only a night; were it much longer, the whole crop would suffer. On their way down to the coast again there is little or no risk of the moth, but arriving at Smyrna we pick up the insect again in the ‘khans,’ where the figs are prepared for export, but in the larval form. Here, in August and September, little trace of the insect is seen, the larvae are then too small to emerge and pupate; but by October many full-grown larvae may be found on the fig-heaps or crawling up the walls; a few pupate inside the figs, and these probably produce the few imagines found in the ‘khans,’ at the port of shipping. The unpleasantness of the larvae crawling all about the ship greatly detracts from the pleasure of a voyage on a vessel laden with Smyrna figs.
Fig. 36.—Pile of refuse-figs in a Smyrna ‘khan:’ On the wall, above these figs, fig-moth larvae congregate in large numbers.
With regard to preventive measures, there seems in many parts of Asia Minor to be two crops of figs—one in May and June and one later. The former produces a large, watery fig, unfit for sale. It is left to rot on the ground, but it serves as food for the larvae which will produce the myriad swarms of moths in the early autumn. Obviously these worthless figs should be destroyed as completely as possible. Equally obvious are the suggestions that the figs should be covered at night with some cheap covering whilst on the ‘serghi,’ and screened from the moth whilst in the depots, and their sojourn there should be as short as possible. Measures for destroying the larvae in the fig usually take the form of heat—either hot air, hot water, or steam. Each is effective, and each has certain advantages and disadvantages; still, the more progressive merchants of Smyrna were, before the War, experimenting trying to find the best means of destroying the larvae, and in time a uniform system will probably emerge.
CHAPTER XII
THE STABLE-FLY (Stomoxys)
Fly! Thy brisk unmeaning buzz
Would have roused the man of Uz;
And, besides thy buzzing, I
Fancy thou’rt a stinging-fly.