Observations on Sonic Entonioplilliorece. 173 



OBSERVATIONS ON SOME ENTOMOPHTHORE^.. 

 By F. M. Webstkr, M. Sc. 



Read before the Ohio Acadenn- of Science, December 28, 1893. 



It is certainly to be regretted that there are not more field 

 workers in this most interesting line of research. Scarcely a 

 season passes that does not witness one or more emphasized 

 attacks from these wonderful plant growths, and I do not 

 believe we at all understand the magnitude of their influence 

 in the interaction of organisms that is continually going on 

 about us. True, they are, as a rule, conspicuously abundant 

 only during seasons when their respective hosts are present 

 in excessive numbers. But, as this sooner or later occurs 

 with most of our common insects, there is usuall}^ no lack of 

 opportunity to enlarge our knowledge of their habits and 

 interpositions. For my own part, I am usually too over- 

 whelmed with strictly entomological work to give them more 

 than casual attention, and, besides, have neither the knowl- 

 edge or literature requisite to a study of them that would be 

 of any value. In Ohio, the Summer of 1893 developed 

 out-of-door attacks of what I supposed, at the time, 

 to be Empusa muscce Cohn. Unfortunately, not being 

 aware of the importance of this exceptional phenomenon, 

 no specimens were secured. On the outskirts of the city 

 of A.shtabula, 'on June 22, I saw a considerable number 

 of affected flies attached to the leaves of some fruit trees that 

 were standing in a small enclosure in which a number of 

 swine were confined. The flies were evidently attracted to 

 the locality by the droppings and refuse feed, and found a 

 resting place on the leaves, where they were overcome by the 

 disease, which might have originated in the Syrphidce in 

 attendance upon Aphides. On two other occasions, in other 

 localities, but under similar environments, the same observa- 

 tion was repeated, and seemingly on the same species of 



