4IO NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



hams, also on cheese, peltry, skins, horns, hoofs of dead animals, 

 and even feathers, insects in museums, mounted birds and animals. 

 It has also been recorded as devouring beeswax. It will not ordi- 

 narily eat clothing unless it is badly saturated with fatty animal 

 m.atter. The most obvious method of protection from injury is 

 to exclude the beetles from buildings where materials subject to 

 attack are stored, and in case this is impractical, fumigation at 

 intervals with carbon bisulfid should result in destroying most of 

 these pests. An even more effective substance is hydrocyanic 

 acid gas prepared by bringing diluted sulfuric acid in contact with 

 cyanid of potassium. This latter material is exceedingly poison- 

 ous and should be handled only by those fully conversant with 

 its nature. Neither the carbon bisulfid nor the hydrocyanic acid 

 gas will injure skins, though we would not care to use the latter 

 where dried meat was infested or any moist product likely to be 

 used for food. 



Cecidomyia hirtipes O. S. A very interesting solidago gall was 

 found by the assistant entomologist, D. B. Young, at Elizabethtown 

 N. Y., the later part of August. The outer portion closely re- 

 sembled the partly open husks of a hickory nut, the inner cavity 

 normally occupied by the nut being filled with a peculiar, stringy, 

 fibrouslike growth, at the base of which dipterous pupae were 

 observed. This curious deformation is evidently caused by the 

 larvae attacking the plant early in its growth, and the tissues which 

 would normally develop into a stout stem, become much thickened 

 and form a somewhat globular gall which appears to rupture late in 

 the season. A large fuscous, winged Cecidomyid was bred from 

 this gall in early September, and on consulting literature it was 

 found to be the species described by Osten Sacken under the above 

 name. He states that it forms a rounded gall at the tip of stunted 

 stalks of solidago, sometimes nearly an inch in diameter, smooth, 

 brownish on the outside, solid inside, containing several larvae in 

 compartments. It would seem from his description as though our 

 split gall was something abnormal. The following description made 

 from recently emerged individuals varies in slight particulars only, 

 from that given by Osten Sacken.* 



Description. Antennae yellowish, the apical eight or nine seg- 

 ments bright red, 22 segments in all, each with a basal whorl of dark 

 brown hairs. Eyes black, rather coarsely granulated, deeply 

 emarginate. Prothorax very narrow, black, with median area 

 black, laterally reddish brown; mesothorax with a broad, median, 



' Monogr. Diptera N. Am. pt i, 1862, p. 195. 



