MUSCIDiE. 



409 



laying their eggs in the wounds, especially of those left on the 

 field over night. The larva of M. Ctesar (Fig. 329) is of very 

 rapid growth. It is of an "elongated conical form, pointed 

 towards the head, which is furnished with two fleshy horns," 

 and horny mouth-parts, and a pair of rudiments of branchiae 

 on the prothoracic ring. The body is suddenly truncated, the 

 end being furnished with a pair of stigmata. The pupa trans- 

 forms in the ground, within a puparium of the usual long, cy- 

 lindrical form. 



Dr. Chapman of Appalachicola, writes to Mr. Sanborn that 

 this fly, " attracted by the stench of a mass of decaying insects 

 which have perished in the leaf of Sarracenia, ventures in and 

 deposits its eggs, and the larvae devour the festering heap. 

 These in turn, on becoming flies, are 

 unable to get out of their prison, perish, 

 and are added to the putrefying mass 

 that had nourished them." 



F. Smith notices in the Transactions 

 of the Entomological Society of Lon- 

 don, 1868, the "Warega" fly of Brazil, 

 which is said to be the "pest of both 

 man and animals ; it is a species of 

 IMusca, and is said to lay its eggs in the 

 skin ; large and terrible swellings are 

 formed. The mode of extracting the 

 maggot is to cut an opening, and to press it out — a most 

 painful operation. These wounds are very diflficult to cure." 



The House-fly, Musca clomestica Linn., is common in the 

 warmer parts of the year, and hibernates througli the winter. A 

 study of the proboscis of the fly reveals a wonderful adaptability 

 of the mouth-parts of this insect to their uses. We have already 

 noticed the most perfect condition of these parts as seen in the 

 horse-fly. In the proboscis of the housefly the hard parts are 

 obsolete, and instead we have a fleshy tongue-like organ (Fig. 

 330), bent up underneath the head when at rest. The maxillae 

 are minute, and the palpi (mp) are single-jointed, and the man- 

 dibles (m) are comparatively useless, being very short and 

 small compared with the lancet-like jaws of the mosquito or 

 horse-fl)\ But the structure of the tongue itself (labium, I) is 



