24 PROCEEDINGS ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



NOTES ON TWO PARASITIC DIPTERA. 



BY A. B. GAHAN. 



Credit for the following interesting rearings must go to Robert 

 Fouts, a Washington school boy who was employed as helper 

 in the laboratory at College Park, Md., the past summer. The 

 parasitized hosts were in both cases collected and brought to 

 the laboratory by him. 



On September 3, 1914, an adult specimen of Stagmomantis 

 Carolina was picked up in Washington, D. C. When secured 

 the mantid was alive but had a hole in the side of the abdomen 

 through which could be seen a dipterous larva. Whether this 

 wound was due to an old injury which had become maggot- 

 infested or whether it was made by the dipterous larva prepara- 

 tory to emergence is not known. The mantid was placed in a 

 breeding jar with some earth and on the same date three full 

 grown dipterous larvae crawled out of the aperture and entered 

 the soil. On September 21, three adult sarcophagids appeared 

 in the jar. These have been determined by Mr. W. R. Walton 

 as Sarcophaga (Helicobia) helicis. 



In his Seventh Report on the Insects of Missouri, Riley records 

 the rearing of a sarcophagid w r hich he determined as Sarcophaga 

 carnaria var. mantivora from a female Mantis. In referring to 

 this record by Professor Riley, Coquillett in Insect Life, v, p. 

 23, states the host as Stagmomantis Carolina, but omits the name 

 of the parasite. These are the only records known to the writer 

 of the rearing of sarcophagids from mantids. Mr. E 0. G. 

 Kelly has recently shown Sarcophaga helicis to be parasitic on 

 grasshoppers in Kansas (Jour. Agri. Research, U. S. Dept. Agri. 

 vol. n, p. 441). 



Two larvae of Leucania unipuncta were taken at College Park, 

 Md., July 27, 1914, and placed in a breeding jar. On July 29 

 there emerged from one of these Iarva3 a number of dipterous 

 maggots. These pupated in the bottom of the jar and on August 

 6 two of the puparia produced adult tachinids. These flies were 

 determined by Mr. Walton as Metachcda helymus. This is be- 

 lieved to be the first record of a host for this epecies. 



In discussing this paper Mr. Busck suggested the possibility 

 that Mr. Gahan's sarcophagid fly-larvae were not normally para- 

 sitic, but that they had gained entrance through the mouth of 

 the mantid while the mantid was eating the mother fly; he told 

 of one such case which he observed years ago. In 1897, he was 



