WANTED, A PARASITE. No Agents Need Apply.

Free Lance, Volume IV, Issue 184, 9 January 1904, Page 6

WANTED, A PARASITE. No Agents Need Apply.

THE Westrahan entomologist is going to Brazil, to secure a parasite for the fruit fly. It wouldn't do for the Westralian Government to send a few fruit flies to Brazil, asking somebody to fit them up with parasites which would worry their lives out. It requires an entomologist to see that no* inferior or unhealthy parasite shall be foisted on an unsuspecting colony, but that the country shall get full value for its money. » * • Many years ago, a hare-brained person made a wager that "Whiteley," London's great universal provider, would supply a pint of fleas to order. Whiteley instructed several Whitechapel ladies to go ahead, and a brimming pint of "pulex irritans" was delivered to the gentleman, who gave the order. Seems to us that wire to Whiteley's, instead of an entomologist to Brazil, would about fill the longing of the Westralian Government. Perhaps, Australia's universal provider, Anthony Hordern, keeps an assortment of parasites in stock. Anyhow, the Government might try that firm. * * * We remember that a Duke, with an insect craze, a while back thought he would like to have a bug of a peculiar colour, only found m the tropical regions of Central Africa. He fitted out an expedition, at a cost of £20,000, to get some. A good many men were killed with fever and blacks m the bush, and many blacks* gave up their lives m the cause of the Briton's bug. Nobody knows yet whether the bug was found, and it wouldn't do anybody any good if hehappened to stumble across it. * * # Of course, it is entirely different with the insect parasite required to worry the Westralian fruit fly. Probably, the idea may be that the entomologist shall have a "ripping" holiday at the people's expense, and return triumphant with a parasite that would probably be disgusted with the fruit fly, and refuse to bite him. Australia has more parasites of its own than any other country on the face of the earth. * * • Still, for the sake of bored Government savants it is perhaps as well they should have a holiday now and then, and to search for a parasite will furnish a good enough reason for an inquisitive public. We might take example by the Westralian Government's action, and send forth some of our tired experts m search of new lines m flies and so forth. Some of them wouldn't come back, of course, but. m the interest of science, we could put up with that. The Westralian idea seems to be that the Brazilian fruit fly parasite will go into business as soon as the entomologist comes back, and will lose no time in exterminating the pest. It doesn't seem to have occurred to them that a cable message to Brazil might fetch all the parasites without the aid of an expert to personally conduct them at public expense.