mJURIOTJS DIPTEROUS INSECTS. 



ON SOME SPECIES OF ANTHOMYIID^. 



Tlie opportunity of observing, during the past summer, the several 

 stages and transformations of some species of Ayithomyiidm which had 

 not been known to us in this country before, has led me to an exami- 

 nation of the liistories of the allied species ; and as some of them 

 merit special consideration from their depredations upon important 

 crops, and one, from the material aid rendered by it in the destruction 

 of the Eocky Mountain locust, it is believed that a notice of the seve- 

 ral species, presenting the latest discoveries in relation to their history, 

 their present accepted nomenclature, and the best means of prevent- 

 ing their injuries, may prove convenient for reference, and of service 

 to the student and agriculturist. Some general remarks respecting 

 the family to which they belong and their classification may serve as 

 a fitting introduction to specific details. 



Habits of the Anthomyiidae. 

 The Antliomyiidm have been so named (from antlws, flower, and 

 muia, fly) from their habit of frequenting various flowers, particularly 

 those of the Umbelliferm and Compositce; but as there is another group 

 of flies, known as the SyrpMdcB — prettily variegated in yellow and 

 black, and many of them bearing resemblance to bees, wasps and hor- 

 nets, which are pre-eminently flower visitors for feeding on their pol- 

 len or nectar — the designation of " flower-flies " may properly be re- 

 served for them. The Anthomyians, in addition to their love of 

 flowers, have also their seasons for idle sporting, and large companies 

 are at times to bo seen indulging in aerial dances, after the manner of 

 some of the gnats. Their larvje (naked, footless forms, often spoken 

 of as " maggots ") feed usually on living vegetable matter, as the roots 

 of plants and the inner tissue of leaves, but some of the species find 

 their nourishment in decaying vegetable matter and in manure. In 

 the genus Homalomyia, where the species live in wet, decomposing 

 vegetable and animal matter, that their respiration may be the better 

 maintained in such situations, they are provided, in the place of the 

 ordinary spiracles or breathing-pores, with lateral branchia? or gills, 

 which, as in the fishes, permit the air to be extracted from the sur- 

 rounding fluids. Some of the species of this genus, as Homalomyia 

 canicularis, and the "privy-fly," H. scalaris, which occur in both Eu- 

 rope and North America, are recorded as having been, in a number of 

 instances and sometimes in large numbers, discharged from the human 



