174 PROCEEDINGS ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



feeding on dead animal matter. Early on the morning of July 

 10 examination was made of a pile of bran-manure mixture. The 

 sun was not shining brightly and the surface of the mixture had 

 not yet dried off. Hundreds of larvae were in full view feeding 

 on the semiliquid matter of the surface. The larvae of Musca 

 domestica, Stomoxys calcitrans, Ophyra leucostoma, and others were 

 in evidence, but the larva of Euxesta notata outnumbered them 

 all. In two or three spots some Euxesta larvae were congregated 

 in active squirming masses. Thirty or forty of them could be 

 seen intensely active and tumbling over one another in an ap- 

 parent attempt to get at some choice bit of food. These masses 

 were taken up in vials, and after they had scattered a little it was 

 seen that each group had been feeding on a dead maggot, which 

 upon examination proved to be the larvae of Musca domestica. 

 There were three or four openings in the body walls of the dead 

 larva, most of them occurring in the intersegmental sutures, and 

 through these the Euxesta larvae were lapping up the fluid con- 

 tents in the interior. In these observations there is, of course, 

 no evidence that the Euxesta larvae are predaceous in habit. In 

 fact, a number of considerations point to the contrary. The 

 house fly larvae are about twice the size of Euxesta, and presum- 

 ably could easily escape unless overwhelmed by sheer weight of 

 numbers. Euxesta larvae were never observed attacking the 

 living larvae of the house fly. The list of larval foods given above 

 indicates that it is normally saprophagous. It is interesting to 

 note in this connection that it possesses none of the structural 

 characters which, according to Keilin, 1 are peculiar to certain 

 anthomyid larvae which are said to be exclusively carnivorous 

 or predacious in habit during the latter stages of their develop- 

 ment. Some of these characters are (1) mandibles strong and 

 close enough together; (2) pharyngeal sclerites long and strongly 

 chitinized, almost black. No trace of longitudinal folds on the 

 internal face of the ventral part, (3) the hypostomal sclerite not 

 of an H-form, and is strongly chitinized and separated only at the 

 anterior part, (4) a small rod is present at the side of the mandi- 

 bles, extending forward and is dentate at the free extremity, (5) 

 labial palpi present and elongate. It will be seen by reference to 

 the figures that none of these characters are present in the larvae 

 of Euxesta notata. 



Finally it is desired to record the fact that the larvae of Euxesta 

 notata show a pronounced migratory habit. A reference to this 

 habit is made in Mr. Coquillett's notes. In his observations on 

 the larvae breeding in a decaying apple, he found that the larvae 



1 Keilin, D. Bui. Soc. Ent. de France, Dec. 23, 1914. 



