590 HOWARD 



This species is shown in its different stages on Plate xxxi, 

 at fig. 2. 



Drosophila Jicncbris Meig. 



This species is common to Europe and North America, and 

 in habits resembles the preceding insect. We have bred it 

 from rotten cherries from Massachusetts and it is recorded as 

 breeding in the waste of pressed olives in Mauritius. It was 

 captured upon human excrement at Travilah, Maryland, by 

 Mr. Pratt. 



Drosophila busckii Coq. 



This insect was captured in a privy at Charlestown, West 

 Virginia, by Mr. Busck. The same species was previousl}'" 

 reared at this office from rotten potatoes and from burrows of 

 Chion cinctus. It also occurs at Algonquin, Illinois. 



Family OSCINID^. 



These are also small flies, usually either dark and shining or 

 yellowish in color, the larvae of which breed in the stems of 

 grasses or are found in decaying vegetable material. 



Hippelates Jlavipes Loew. 

 The metamorphoses of the very minute flies of this genus 

 are unknown and its larval habits are unrecorded except in a 

 single instance when Hif Relates convexus was reared at this 

 Department from the deserted burrow of a Lepidopterous larva 

 in sugar cane from Florida. The flies themselves are very 

 abundant, especially in the South, where they are found swarm- 

 ing about the eyes of animals and human beings, rendering 

 life burdensome. Sores, ulcers and other open wounds have 

 a great attraction for them and they are said by Hubbard to be 

 responsible for the transmission of the disease known as ' pink- 

 eye ' occasionally prevalent, especially among school children, 

 in Florida. The present species seems to be widely distributed 

 in the Southern States, and has been captured on human excre- 

 ment at Travilah, Maryland, at Leesburg, Snickers Gap and 

 Rosslyn, Virginia. It is probably occasionally and perhaps 

 often responsible for the carriage of putrefactive germs to open 



