500 Bulletin 78. 



From the following brief record of the curious habits of this Anthotnyiian, 

 one may easily understand why an observer, finding the insect living in a 

 certain manner in one locality, would not suspect that it could be 

 the same one that he found in another locality feeding upon an object so 

 different as to belong to a different kingdom in nature. Dr. Fitch named the 

 insect " The Deceiving Wheat Fly," as he found the fly very numerous 

 hovering over and alighting upon the heads of wheat at the time they are in 

 flower ; it was erroneously regarded by some as the fly which produced the 

 yellow maggot of the Wheat Midge {Diplosis tritici). Nothing further has 

 been recorded of this wheat fly, and it had always been considered a distinct 

 species until Mr. Coquillett recently (Insect Life, vi, 372) discovered by an 

 examination of one of Dr. Fitch's types that it was identical with the species 

 under discussion. The insect is next mentioned in our economic literature 

 as a maggot working in sprouting seed com in New Jersey, and was named 

 the "Seed-corn Maggot [Anthomyia zeae) '' hy Dr. Riley. This insect 

 seems not to have again been reported injuring corn in this manner.* A few 

 years later, the insect appeared in a decidedly beneficial role. In the 

 autumn of 1876 it is estimated that its maggots destroyed about ten per cent- 

 of the locust eggs in Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska, and also sucked thous- 

 ands of these eggs in the States of Minnesota, Iowa, Colorado, and Texas. 

 Dr. Riley named it the "Anthomyia Egg Parasite," and considered it a 

 variety of the Root Maggot {A. radicum)- In the same account of this 

 locust-egg feeder. Dr. Riley says he has bred the same flies from cabbage and 

 radish. It is probably not very common on these vegetables ; we have not 

 met with it among the hundreds of specimens of the maggots or flies from 

 early cabbages, which we examined. Its occurrence in connection with the 

 Cabbage Root Maggot on seed cabbage has been noted above. In 1882, 

 the insect was found in England feeding on onions and associated with the 

 Onion Maggot. In 1885, it was found working on the stems of young bean 

 plants in Canada; and this year it worked serious injury in bean fields in 

 Ohio. Dr. Linter has recently bred the insect from seed potatoes. This 

 summer we bred the fly from a maggot found on the roots of Hedge Mustard 

 [Sisymbrium officinale.) 



This is an astonishing arra}^ of food for such an insect. It 

 includes sprouting seed corn, eggs of locusts, cabbages, radishes, 

 onions, beans, and hedge mustard. It is thus not a strict vege- 

 tarian like its near relatives ; and, when sucking locust eggs, it is 



*I am indebted to Mr. L. O. Howard, United States Entomologist, for the privilege of 

 examining Mr. Coquillett's manuscript notes on (he synonomy oifitsciceps Zelt., included 

 in which I found this " Seed-corn Maggot ;" doubtless the reference was made from an ex- 

 amination of Dr. Riley's types. 



In a collection of Anthomyiians recently received from Mr. Fletcher I found a female fly 

 which bore the label : " Bred from Indian Corn, destroying the sproutirg seed." with no 

 date. My notes on this specimen, made at the time, read : " Probably a female of Phorbia 

 cilicu ra"=P. fusciceps. 



