314 Forty- SIXTH Report on thm State Museum 



A^ent above, in the female distant, with an interposed, oblon<>-, l)lack 

 spot, furcate above and below, antennae blackish, Avith the articulations 

 piceous or ferruginous. Thorax black, covered with a close, dirty yel- 

 low or fulvous, coarse pubescence, with remote, curved, black bristles. 

 Wings at the articulations and extreme base, ferruginous, Winglets 

 and poisers Avhite. Legs rusty black, with black hairs. Abdomen with 

 distant, curved, black bristles, in both s-exes cinereous, with a silky 

 lustre, each segment Avith two quadrate black spots, and widely edged 

 with black, varying in situation and degree, according to the incidence 

 of the light. 



This species, not uncommon in houses in siimmer, nearlj?- disajjpears 

 when the more abundant M. harpyia \jlome^ticri\ appears. 



Remedies. 



Whenever this Hy intrudes in such number as to render its destruc- 

 tion desirable, this can readily be accomplished l)y the use of pyrethrum. 

 If they are gathered in clusters, the insecticide may be couA-eniently 

 thrown upon them with a powder bellows. Should the}' be scattered 

 throughout the room, the powder may be distributed through the 

 atmosphere of the apartment, first chjsing the windows and doors, and 

 driving- up the files that they may. be brought more directly imder its 

 infiuence. 



That the pyrethrum is effective against these files, notwithstanding a 

 statement that has been made to the contrary, is shown from the note 

 received from my Palenville correspondent, to whom its use in her 

 emergency had been recommended: 



"I send my kindest thanks for the advice which has cleared my house 

 of its army of files. I used the pyrethrum with bellows, and send you 

 a trophy of its success. We swej)! up dustpaufuls of them, and are 

 now entirely free from their annoying presence." 



Killed by a Fungus. 

 Mr. C. L. Marlatt, of the Entomological Division, U. S. Dept. Agri- 

 culture, at Washington, in recording, in Insect Life {loc. cit.) an extra- 

 ordinarj' mortality among flies observed by him on the grounds of the 

 Agricultural Department, in the autumn of 1891, states, that among 

 the large number of dead files that were thickly covering the under- 

 side of the leaves and M^ere fastened by a fungus growth — often as 

 many as eight or ten files on a single leaf — most of them Avere Pol- 

 lenia rudis. The fungus was not, as was at first supposed, the com- 

 mon fungus of the house-fiy, viz., Fuqyusa musra-, which is not 

 uncommon in houses on windows, etc., during the late summer and 

 early autumn, but was determined as a species recently described by 

 Dr. R. Ihaxter, as Emputia Americana, Avhich, so far as knoAvn, 

 occurs only out-doors, on A'egetation, etc. 



