58 THE EARLY STAGES OP TABANID^ 



female made no effort to escape, indeed it required considerable force 

 to remove the insect from her position near the eggs. The immedi- 

 ate locality was a hillside pasture lot, half covered with scrub oak and 

 berry bushes, dotted with clumps of false indigo. The nearest water 

 was a small overgrown ditch some 60 feet distant. 



On June 18 Walton visited the same spot near Highspire, with the 

 hope of securing additional data, and was rewarded by finding another 

 fly in a similar position on a leaf of the wild cherry, thirty feet dis- 

 tant from the water. 



The eggs (Plate 2, Figs. 28 to 32), "which are deposited upon the 

 under surfaces of the leaves of various herbaceous plants and trees" 

 (Walton), in a three-sided pyramidal heap, are described by him as 

 "yellowish white in color, about 1.5 mm. in length, slender, slightly 

 curved, and resembling those of many other flies in general appear- 

 ance." One of the heaps contained 534 eggs by actual count (Plate 

 2, Fig. 29). 



The eggs of Goniops have been further observed, according to 

 McAtee, during each of the years 1908, 1909, and 1910, on Plummer's 

 Island, Maryland. On June 26, 1908, Mr. H. S. Barber collected a 

 female and a large greenish white egg mass, which was laid on the 

 under side of an oak leaf about 8 feet above the ground. The larvae 

 hatched June 28. 



In 1910 McAtee found four egg masses on July 3 and two on 

 July 10. One of the first four egg masses was collected. The larvae 

 hatched July 7. Another had been deserted by the female by July 

 10. The outer layers of eggs were black, and from these issued, on 

 July 11, numerous proctotrupids, which Mr. J. C. Crawford says are 

 Telenomus, probably an undescribed species. The two remaining 

 egg masses of the lot found July 3 were covered by the females 

 until July 10 (Plate 2, Fig. 28), a period of a week, during which 

 time many eggs were added. These eggs, and the two masses discov- 

 ered on July 10 as well (Plate 2, Figs. 30 and 31), were hatched by 

 July 17. They were deposited on the under sides of Eupatorium, 

 Benzoin, and Hamamelis leaves. Some of the empty egg cases (Plate 

 2, Fig. 32, McAtee), usually clung to the leaf after hatching, but in 

 one instance not the slightest trace remained of an egg mass on a 



