February, '16] ENTOMOLOGISTS' DISCUSSIONS 133 



evidence to show that it will not also feed upon healthy plant or animal 

 tissue. It is believed that if entomologists would study the conditions 

 favoring the development of large numbers of P. fusciceps, its economic 

 status would soon be determined. 



Mr. J. M. Aldrich: Recently in Michigan I had a conversation 

 with Professor Pettit, and he told me that this fly is very injurious to 

 beans in that state, destroying the young plants. I also heard the 

 same complaint about its habits in Canada, when I was lately at 

 Ottawa. It seems to be very important. 



Mr. T. H. Parks: In regard to the injury this insect does to beans, 

 I wish to add a little to what Dr. Aldrich has said. In southern Idaho 

 during the spring of 1914 Pegomyia fusciceps appeared in wholesale 

 numbers in bean fields, the maggots attacking the sprouting beans 

 after the young plants had developed the second leaf. . Inasmuch as 

 the young plants were soon killed, there was certainly circumstantial 

 evidence that the maggots were attacking the living plant beneath 

 the surface, and also the sprouting seed. The injury extended over 

 several large areas ranging in altitude from 2,800 to 4,500 feet, and in 

 some cases the crop was entirely destroyed. They were also seriously 

 injuring potatoes and in some cases where potatoes followed a wheat 

 crop of the previous year. 



I reared P. fusciceps from maggots found in the "bulbs" of young 

 wheat plants in Kansas in 1909, and can add this host plant to the 

 list presented by Mr. Schoene. It is doubtful if wheat constitutes a 

 favorable host plant for this insect, although in Idaho I have noticed 

 serious infestation to potatoes where this crop followed wheat. 



Mr. N. F. Howard: This species formed a considerable per cent 

 of 10,000 adults of the three species (brassicce, fusciceps, cepetorum) 

 caught at Greenbay, Wis., last summer. It was also found hibernating 

 in the pupal stage in onions, and was bred from both cabbage and 

 onion. 



Mr. George A. Dean: In Kansas, I found in two or three cases 

 that corn was badly infested where it followed wheat. I do not know 

 whether the maggots infested the wheat planted the previous year, 

 but I did find that it was much worse in the two or three corn fields 

 which followed wheat. 



President Glenn W. Herrick: We will now hear the paper by 

 Mr. J. G. Sanders. 



RECORDS OF LACHNOSTERNA IN WISCONSIN 



By J. G. Sanders, Madison, Wis. 

 (Withdrawn for pubHcation elsewhere) 



