[15] Report of the State Entomologist. Ill 



Family Characters. 

 The family of Eumenidce, to which this species belongs, contains 

 those of the true wasps, having their wings folded horizontally, which 

 are solitary in their habits, consisting only of males and females ; 

 unlike the neighboring Vesj)idce, which are composed of males, 

 females, and neuters. Some of them, as in the genus Odynerus, in 

 constructing their nests, excavate with their powerful mandibles 

 in sandy banks, in crevices in stone walls, in holes bored in wood by 

 other insects — unlike Eumenes, which builds its mud nests in the open 

 air. 



Hypoderma bovis (De Geer). 



The Ox Warble-Fly. 



(Ord. Diptera: Fam. ffisTRiD^.) 



CEstrns bovis Linn^us : Systema Naturte, 12th edit., ii, 1767, p. 969, 

 No. 1. 



In reply to an inquiry received from Watertown, Jefferson county, 

 N. Y., for information regarding the above-named fly, and for the 

 best method for preventing the deposit of its eggs, the following 

 communication was made to the Country Gentleman, and published in 

 the issue of June 23, 1887. Since that time, the valuable studies of 

 Miss Ormerod, of England, on this species, particularly in the direc- 

 tion, of late, of the enormous losses resulting from its prevalence, has 

 aroused interest in this country, and important observations have 

 been made ujDon it. These will not be referred to at the present, as 

 it is understood that the Entomological Division of the Department 

 of Agriculture at Washington, will soon publish the results of their 

 careful and extended investigations of the insect, in which they have 

 been for some time engaged. 



Warbles are small tumors occurring in the skin of the back of 

 some animals, caused by the presence and operations of a species of 

 fly in its larval stage, contained within them. 



Of these warbles or wurmals (probably derived from worm-holes), 

 several different ones are known, as that of the buffalo, produced by 

 Hypoderma bonassi Brauer; of the ox, by Hypoderma bovis DeGeer; 

 another species believed to belong to the ox or the sheep, Hypoderma 

 lineata Villers; of the reindeer, by (Edemagena tarandi (Linn.); and an 

 unnamed species, the larvae of which were taken from under the skin 

 of the neck of a box turtle, Gistudo Carolina, in Massachusetts 

 {American Naturalist, 1882, xvi, p. 598, larva figured). 



