182 



FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



tion of them. The following are some of the statements relating to 

 their earliest discovery, made to Professor Kiley in the summer and 

 autumn of 1876, from correspondents in Minnesota and Kansas : 



Yesterday we discovered that our locust eggs were hatching^ out 

 maggots. We break open the cocoons, and the eggs on exposure to the 

 sun for a few moments crawl away a worm. In warm places along the 

 hedges, the earth is alive with them. — S. M. P., Hiawatha, Kansas, 

 Oct. 30, 1876. 



I fiud the parasites more plentiful to-day than before. The ground 

 seems to be full of them, from five to twenty of the small white worms 

 in a single cell. In every cell in which I have found any, the eggs 

 were nearly or quite destroyed. — C. E. L., Rockport, Minn., Oct. 16, 

 1876. 



A large proportion of the eggs have been destroyed by a small white 

 larva. Many of the egg-cases, which ordinarily contain from twenty 

 to thirty eggs, had no eggs in them, but were full of these worms or 

 larvag, each one of which took the place of the egg which it had de- 

 stroyed. — F. H. a., Lawrence, Kansas, Nov. 1, 1876. 



During the autumn of 1876, these larva3, it was estimated, destroyed 

 about ten percent of the locust eggs in Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska. 

 They also rendered excellent service in Minnesota, Iowa, Colorado and 

 Texas. That they had not been previously discovered may be owing 

 to the fact that but little attention had been, before this time, given to 

 the locust eggs.* 



Description of the Insect. 

 The larva and the perfect insect have been popularly described by 

 Professor Riley as follows: "This good little friend, which simul- 

 taneously prevailed over so large an extent of country, is a small white 

 maggot, of the same general form of the common meat maggots or 



"gentles," but measur- 

 ing, when full-grown 

 and extended, not 

 quite one-fourth of an 

 inch in length. The 

 head with some of the 

 anterior joints of the 

 body, tapers and is re- 

 tractile, and the jaws 

 consist of two small 

 hooks joined to a V- 



FiG. 52.— Locust-egg Anthomyian parasite, Phorbia cili- shaped, black," horny 

 crura: «, thefly;_6,puparmm; c, larva ; d, head of same ^.^^^ which, aS it is 



■ all enlarged. (Rilev). 



piece, 



*A similar attack upon locust eggs in Asia Minor, made by a parasitic Bombyliid fly — 

 Callostomafascipennis, Macq., which had entirely destroyed the locusts throughout an area 

 of eighty square miles,' was last year brought to the notice of the Entomological Society of 

 London. For some of the observations made upon the parasite, see the American Natural- 

 let for 1882, p. 916. 



