116 ELEMENTARY LESSONS ON INSECTS 



ized and distinctive characteristics with the life history of 

 the fly, Muscina stabulans. This fly is common about 

 dwellings and barns, preferring basements and other half- 

 lighted places. It seeks out soft pulpy fermenting vegetable 



substances, fruit parings, melon 

 rinds, etc., on which to lay its 

 eggs. The eggs hatch within a 

 few hours, and the larvae bore 

 into and feed upon the vege- 

 table pulp. They grow with 

 extraordinary rapidity, 

 attaining full size in ten days 

 or less. 



These larvae are of the 

 soft, white, thin-skinned leg- 

 less and headless type com- 

 monly known as "maggots." This name may suggest 

 stenches, for the reason that the best known maggots live 

 in carrion: but Muscina fly maggots are vegetable feeders 

 and their environment holds nothing more offensive than 

 odors of fermentation. 



A maggot is perhaps the most remarkable form that any 

 insect takes on. Though fully grown it shows externally 

 none of the parts of the fly that is to be: no wings, no legs, 

 no antennae, no eyes; and what remains of mouthparts 

 (two minute mouth hooks) may not be readily identified 

 with the mouthparts we have been examining or with the 

 parts of the proboscis of the fly. 



Fig. 47. — Muscina fly, Muscina stabulans 

 (from Howard). 



