76 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



roads and pathways. At his suggestion I kept a lookout for 

 the insect and on the ist of July succeeded in securing a speci 

 men running across a roadway from which was reared the 

 parasite. 



July 5, a large, fleshy maggot crawled out of the body of its 

 host, which was now dead, and on being placed in a jar of moist 

 earth it at once burrowed downward and disappeared. On the 

 1 8th of the same month the fly issued from the puparium. At 

 9.30 A. M., when first noticed, its wings were still unexpanded, 

 but in half an hour, when next examined, the insect had fully 

 matured. 



It has been identified by Mr. D. W. Coquillett as belonging to 

 the true genus Sarcophaga as at present constituted, a group in 

 which the species are not well understood. 



This is, so far as I am able to learn, the first instance of a 

 sarcophagid parasite having been reared from a living adult 

 beetle. Instances, however, are not lacking of somewhat similar 

 habits in this group. I have at hand a reference cited by Brauer 

 of a European species closely related to Sarcophaga, viz., Blce- 

 soxipha grylloctena Loew, having bred from the bodies of 

 Pezotettix alpinus and other Acridiidas. Our common Sar 

 cophaga carnaria Linn., which is common to both the old and 

 new worlds, has been reared from dead adults of Oryctes nasi- 

 cornis and Polyphylla fullo, and it may be interesting to note 

 in this connection the rearing of another sarcophagid, Helicobia 

 helicis Towns., from the dead body of Allorhina nitida. Two 

 flies issued July 27, 1895, Washington, D. C. It has previously 

 been recorded as bred from Lachnosterna (Psyche, vol. VI, p. 

 468), but there is no mention as to whether the host was living 

 or dead. The decomposing bodies of the larger Scarabaeidae 

 emit an unusually powerful stench, especially such as are washed 

 up on the shores of lakes or other bodies of water, and it 

 would seem that they are particularly attractive to the carrion- 

 feeding sarcophagids. 



Just what attracts the parasitic Sarcophaga to the living Scar- 

 ites it would be interesting to know. Can it be possible that 

 the parasitized individuals are diseased ? 



There is in the National collection a series of the tachinid 

 Eutrixa masuria Walk, bred from the adult of Lachnosterna 

 arcuata at Washington, D. C., in March, 1895. 



The tachinid parasite of the adult of Calosoma peregrinator 

 Guer. mentioned by Mr. Coquillett in Insect Life (vol. II, p. 234) 

 has since been identified by him as Biomyia georgice Br. and 

 Berg. This species has also been reared from Calosoma calidum 

 and is mentioned in the report on the gypsy moth published in 

 January, 1897 (? ^3) as Pseudotrcetocera calosomcz Coq. 

 (MSS.). 



