PICKLED-FRUIT FLIES: PKEVENTIVES. 221 



In a species of 'WvosophUa which has recently been under my obser- 

 vation, occurring in a jar of mustard pickles, the larvae, when nearly 

 full grown, left the liquid and passed to the side and top of the glass 

 jar in which I had placed them, where they could be observed in feed- 

 ing upon the condensed moisture, and in comparatively rapid move- 

 ment over the surface. Here they transformed to puparia, from which 

 the first lly emerged in four days. 



Preventives. 



If a cloth or paper charged with some substance, the odor of which 

 would overcome the acetic odor, be placed underneath the lid, if prac- 

 ticable, or if not, tied over it, and the exterior of the jar kept entirely 

 free from acid, the contents of the jar will not be attacked. The 

 flies would not be drawn to the jar for the deposit of their eggs. For 

 the above purpose, tarred paper, such as is sometimes used for pre- 

 serving merchandise from wet, would probably prove effectual. Paper 

 steeped in strong carbolic-acid water or in soluble phenyle might be 

 serviceable, or any strong and permanent odor might be thus used. 



Note. — Since the writing of the preceding notice, an advance copy of the Report of the 

 Entomologist of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, Prof. C. Y. Riley, for the year end- 

 ing June, 1882 [issued Oct. 13, 1882], has been received through the kindness of the author. 

 In it is contained an account, by Professor Comstock, of the early stages of Drosophila 

 ampelophila — the egg, larva and pupa — with references to a plate of several figures, il- 

 lustrating structure, etc., not yet issued. A second species of the genus, Drosophila ammna 

 Loew, the larvie of which, like those of D. atnpelophila, were reared from decaying apples, 

 is also described and has been figured in its larval, pupal and perfect states. 



Meromyza Americana Fitch.* 

 The Wheat-stem Maggot. 



(Ord. DIPTERA: Fam. OSCINID^ffi.) 



Fitch: in Trans. N. Y. St. Agricul. Soc. for 1855, xv, 1856, p. 531 ; First and 

 Second Kept. Ins. N. Y., 1856, p. 299. 



Riley; in Rural New Yorker for Jan. 28, 1869, p. — ; First Kept. Ins. Mo., 

 1869, pp. 159-161, fig. 90, pi. 2, f. 28 (depredations, transformations, de- 

 scription, remedies^; in Amer. Entoniol., iii, 1880, p. 181, f. 85 (mention). 



Glover : MS. Notes Journ.— Dipt.. 1874, p. 32, pi. 9, f. 32 (not " 33 "). 



Hind : Insects Inj. to Wheat Crops, 1857, p. 104 (description from Fitch). 



OsTEN Sacken : Cat. Dipt. N. Amer., 1878, p. 207 (citation). 



LiNTNEU : in Count. Gent., xliv, 1879, p, 635 ; in 39th Ann. Kept. N. Y. St. Agri- 

 cul. Soc. for 1879, (1880), pp. 42-46. 



Some stalks of spring wheat, from a field in Scipioville, Cayuga 

 county, N. Y., were submitted to my examination about the 1st of 



*RL'printed, with a few changes, from the 39th Report of the State Agricultural Society, 

 of which but 300 copies were issued. 



