114 SECOND REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Abundance of the Larvae. 



The surprising number in which these larviB at times occur may 

 excuse the alarm which they sometimes excite. 



During the latter part of the winter of 1881-82, they occurred in 

 great abundance in several localities in the town of Morley, St. Law- 

 rence county, N. Y., and occasioned much anxiety, as they were be- 

 lieved by those who first noticed them to be the same insect that had 

 devastated the grass lands of that portion of the State the preceding 

 spring, viz., the Vagabond Crambus, Craivhus vulgivngelhn^. 



It may not be a simple coincidence that the piece of land where they 

 were the most abundant was the particular field to which in my visit to 

 this town the year before to examine the operations of the Crambus, I 

 had first been taken, that its greatest devastation might be shown to me. 

 Could the unusual amount of dead and decaying grass roots left in the 

 ground from the death, in large part, of the grass the previous year, 

 have induced the deposit of an extraordinary number of the Bibio eggs 

 — the instinct of the parent flies recognizing the presence of the needed 

 food-supply for its larvae ? 



After " a very long continued heavy rain on March i, lasting about 

 fifteen hours, and a steady pour all the time," the larvae were 

 found lying upon the ground under leaves, sticks and other covering, 

 often in such numbers as to form a mass of an inch in thickness.* 

 They had been observed, but in less abundance, for some days previous 

 to this rain, when, according to a representation made, " several quarts 

 of them could easily have been gathered." 



Transformation to the Fly. 



Over a hundred of the larvae sent to me by Secretary Harison of the 

 New York State Agricultural Society, on March 2, were placed upon a 

 dead grass sod in my office, on March 6, when they at once commenced 

 burrowing into it, and soon disappeared from sight. They were doubt- 

 less near their pupation, for three weeks thereafter (March 29), the first 

 Bibio nlhipennis emerged — a male. On the 30th, eight males and 

 three females were disclosed ; on the 31st, four males ; showing that in 

 this species, as in a very large proportion of other insects observed, the 

 male is the earliest to make its appearance. 



Is the Species Double-Brooded ? 



Dr. Packard states of the species that there are two broods a year, 



*See notice of large numbers of the larva? of Allorhina nitida, one of the "white 

 grubs," appearing above ground after heavy rains, in the First Rept. on Inj. Ins. of N. Y., 

 pp. 238-9. 



