180 Phoridae. 



reaching the first vein; third vein not furcated; only one, rather 

 feathery, bristle on alula. 



The developmental stages are somewhat known; Bouché (Natur- 

 gesch. d. Ins. 1834, 101) found the larva of dauci in decaying radishes 

 in August, and gives the duration of the larval stage as fourteen 

 days and of the pupal stage as two to three weeks; he describes and 

 figures the larva as flattened cylindrical, narrowed in front, of white 

 colour and spinulose, on the ventral side with four longitudinal rows 

 of small, conical, fleshy papillæ; the posterior end is obliquely cut, 

 with eight fleshy teeth at the margin; the length is 1 mm. The pupa 

 is described as elliptical, flattened at each end, with a marked lateral 

 margin, and of greyish yellow colour; the spiracular tubes are long, 

 directed forwards and outwards; round the posterior end are strong 

 teeth. According to Brauer (Denkschr. kais. Akad. d. Wissensch. 

 Wien, math. nat. Cl. XLVII, 1883) Hartig mentions dauci from Arctia 

 caja, and Letzner bred the same species {atra) from an Agaricus. 

 Reinhard (Verh. k. k. zool. bot. Gesefl. Wien, XXXI, 1881, 207) 

 records several cases in which the species (atra) was found numerously, 

 larvæ, pupæ and imagines, in coffms on the remains of human bodies 

 until five years after burial; Hofmann (Ann. Soc. Ent. de Belg., XXX, 

 1886, C. R. CXXXI and Miinch. med. Wochenschr. 1886) mentions 

 it {albipennis) found in one case, also in all three stages, in a deterred 

 coffm on a body eleven months after burial, and Webster mentions 

 Conicera sp. (Ins. Life II, 1890, 356) found similarly, likewise all 

 three stages, two years after burial; in all these cases the puparia 

 were present in very large numbers. Schmitz (Jaarb. Natuurh. Ge- 

 nootsch. Limburg 1919, 109) mentions females of C. similis taken on 

 dead moles and one specimen on a human corpse. I have myself, as 

 said below, bred C. pauxilla from a nest of Vespa vulgaris?^ taken on 

 ^Vg, the imagines emerging from ^"/s to ^"/s next year. According to 

 the above, the larva evidently lives similarly to other Phoridae in 

 decaying vegetable and animal matters; it is curious that they have 

 so often been found in coffins on human corpses; the question liere 

 arises in which way they have come there; Hofmann thinks it possible 

 that the imagines are able to reach their way to the bodies, but men- 

 tions also the possibility of the eggs having been laid on the body 

 before burial, and Riley and Howard (Ins. Life 1. c. 371) are inclined 

 to think this latter the most probable; this latter way is, I think, the 

 only possible, as the imagines could scarcely penetrate through 

 the ground and into the coffm. It was, I think, more possible that the 



