280 
Insects Attracted to Carrion in Hawaii. 
BY J. F. ILLINGWORTH. 
(Presented at the meeting of December 7, 1922.) 
Recently while carrying on experiments, with dead rats as 
bait, I was interested in the variety of insects attracted. Nat- 
urally the first to appear were the blow-flies, Sarcophaga bar- 
bata Thoms., S. dua Thoms., Chrysomyia megacephala (Fabr.), 
Ch. albiceps Wied., and Lucilia sericata (Meigen). Other flies 
breeding in carrion, usually coming after decay sets in, were 
Ophyra nigra Wied., Fannia pusio Wied., Synthesiomyia nudi- 
seta van der Wulp, and these were accompanied by a consider- 
able variety of insects, apparently attracted by the odor of 
decay, as follows: Eristahs aeneus (Scopoli), E. punctulatus 
Macq., Dacus cucurbitae Coq., Atherigona excisa Wied., Musca 
domestica Linn., Eusxesta annonae Fabr., Brachydeutera argen- 
tata (Walker), the wasp, Pachodynerus simplicornis Sauss., and 
the beetles Clytus crimicornis Chevr., and Melanoxanthus melan- 
ocephalus Thunb. Finally, when the carcass was pretty well 
decomposed, it was visited by the predaceous Staphylinid beetle, 
Creophilus maxillosus L., the young of which feed upon the 
larvae and pupae of the flies, and the skin beetles, Dermestes 
vulpinus Fabr., D. cadaverinus Fabr., Attagenus plebeius Sharp, 
and Necrobia rufipes Fabr. 
I was interested to observe the predaceous habit of the larvae 
of Chrysomyia albiceps. After the carcass was almost eaten, 
the spiny larvae of this fly were frequently observed around the 
edges on the surface of the soil, with their hooks inserted into 
the bodies of the larger maggots of the Sarcophagids, etc. This 
observation led me to a little experiment. I placed fifty of these 
predaceous larvae in a jar of soil, with 100 larvae of the large 
Sarcophagid, S. barbata. On emergence, I found forty-eight of 
the Ch. albiceps came through in good condition—the other two 
dying in the puparium—while only fifty-nine of the Sarcopha- 
gids came through, three others dying in the puparium; hence, 
showing clearly that 38 per cent had fallen a prey to the larvae 
of the smaller, predaceous species. Since Ch. albiceps is a rather 

Proce. Haw. Ent. Soc., V, No. 2, September, 1923. 
