2 Psyche [February 



Ives^ describes "a dried-iip mass of dead flies, about the size of a 

 man's fist. Throughout it were scattered light-colored fragments^ 

 which had somewhat the appearance of empty egg-cases. The 

 whole mass Avas very brittle, and readily crumbled to pieces. It 

 was obtained (at Pemberton, N. J.) from the under surface of a 

 trunk overhanging a small stream." The flies were recognized by 

 Williston as females of a species l)elonging to the genus Athenx, 

 probably to Athenx variegata? In referring to Ives' observations, 

 C. V. Eiley and L. 0. Howard^ add the following remarks : "Some 

 thirteen years ago we collected a large number of these eggs (of 

 Atherix) upon the piling of Lake Minnetonka, near Minneapolis, 

 and they have formed an interesting part of the Dipterological 

 collection of the National Museum, while more recently we received 

 a bit of piling from the shores of Lake Ontario which were covered 

 with these eggs, from which larvje hatched which we were able to 

 determine as belonging to this genus by comparison with the fig- 

 ures in Dr. Brauer s Monograph of Dipterous Larvfe. Our corres- 

 pondent stated that wharf piles for hundreds of feet were covered 

 with these eggs." 



I am much indebted to Mr. Geo. P. Engelhardt. of the Brooklyn 

 Institute of Arts and Sciences, for the following notes on Atherix 

 variegata, which he observed first at Beaver Creek, Beaver County, 

 Utah, in July, 1904:'* "Tbe flies were present by thousands in 

 dense clusters attached to the under side of logs and tree trunks 

 a few inches above the water of Beaver Creek, a turbulent moun- 

 tain stream well stocked with mountain trout. By far the greater 

 part of the flies in the cluster were dead, only a few on the outside 

 being alive. The altitude was about 7,000 feet." Mr. Engelhardt 

 further writes me that "on June 10, 1920, while wading the Car- 

 man Elver, at Yaphank, Long Island, N". Y., a large cluster of 

 leptid flies was observed under about the same conditions as in 



^ Ives, J. E. An interesting method of egg deposition. Ent. News, 1, 1S90, 

 p. 39. 



2 Atherix variegata Wallter occurs in New Jersey. I have seen a number 

 of female specimens of this species in the collections of the American Mu- 

 seum of Natural History, New York; they were taken by Mr. A. J. W'eidt, at 

 Singac, N. J., in July. It is not included in J. B. Smith's List of New Jersey 

 Insects (1910). 



« The eggs of Atherix. Insect Life, 2, Nos. 11-12, 1890, pp. 386-387. 



* Some of the specimens collected on that occasion are preserved in the 

 entomological collections of the Brooklyn Institute, where I have been able 

 to examine them through the kindness of Mr. Chas. S. SchaefEer 



