Of Peaches and Maggots: The Story of Queensland Fruit Fly

The story is not a simple entomological treatise on the subject, Queensland fruit fly, but an investigation of the farmers, government officials and scientists who have had to deal with the fruit fly, their varied responses, and ultimately, the author’s own investigations.

Colonial and agricultural history are involved. Scientific history and biography are involved.  Some of the author’s autobiography is interpolated, as he is an actor in the story as well as its historian.  And of course, there is entomology.  The conclusions and implications point to a particular interpretation or re-interpretation of Darwinian evolution; they point to the impacts of a foreign horticulture and colonial mentality on a new continent; and if you don’t know in advance what is the crucial discovery that explains the fly’s resilience as a pest, there is an element of a scientific mystery story here.