Packard.] doo [January 22, 



maggot, that crawls or rather wriggles about on the bottom until the 

 pupa is matured; they then attach themselves by their abdominal 

 appendages to sticks and roots and to one another, forming great 

 knots or ropes. In this way they remain fixed until the fly is devel- 

 oped. I send you some of the small white maggots ; you have already 

 some of the pupa? and empty cases." 



Similar flies had been observed living in salt vessels in the Grad- 

 uation houses of the salt works in Saxony, Prussia ; and it will be in- 

 teresting to learn whether these species are peculiar to brine of the 

 exact sti-ength noted by Mr. Cox, or whether they can be detected 

 elsewhere. He hoped the whole history of these singular insects 

 would be unravelled during another season. 



In this connection Dr. Packard stated that he had observed the 

 metamorphosis of a gnat, (Chironomus) allied to the mosquito, which 

 lives in the larva and pupa state on the floating eel-grass in Salem 

 harbor. 



Dr. Packard had also received a puparium found by Dr. T. 

 D'Oremieulx of New York, in the sea.-weed on the shores of Narra- 

 gansett Bay, which is scarcely distinguishable from the puparia 

 received from the salt works of Illinois. Dr. Packard had also 

 collected the puparium of an Ephijdra, at Square Island, Labrador, 

 but it was undoubtedly found in a fresh-water or brackish-water lake, 

 for the specimen slipped into his collecting bottle without attract- 

 ing notice, but had it been found on the sea-shore it would have 

 undoubtedly gained attention. It differs very slightly from the Illi- 

 nois puparium, chiefly in the larger abdominal legs, or tubercles with 

 hooks. Dr. Packard thought that these puparia probably belong to 

 three distinct species of Ephydra, the pupa-cases themselves appar- 

 ently not furnishing specific characters, as, so far as he knew, the 

 cylindrical ones of Anthomyia, etc., do not. 



Besides these two halophilous insects, the Ephydra of Narragan- 

 sett Bay, and the Chironomus from Salem Harbor, thefe is only one 

 other salt-water insect known in New England. Several years since, 

 Dr. Packard found the larvte of a species of Mycralymna ? living in 

 the green thread-like algoe at low-water mai'k in Casco Bay. Whether 

 the larvfp, for they were common, feed upon the algae, or are carniv- 

 orous, like most of the Staphylinide, was not observed. 



