DEER FOREST FLY. 55 
But in the past season I had hoped to add something on the 
amount of wings possessed by the female fly,—an interesting subject 
which has long attracted attention with regard to whether she deve- 
loped from the pupa-case without them, or shed them, or whether 
there were modifications of structure or partial removal. 
LrpoptERA CERVI, male, with the wings thrown off; also still retaining wings; line 
showing natural length; and wing, also much magnified. 
In the case of the male of this L. cervi, it is developed with wings 
(see figure above) remarkable for their length compared to that of the 
body of the fly, but it has the power of dropping the wings,—shedding 
them off or getting rid of them entirely in some way when the fly 
settles on a Deer, or what it considers (so to say) may serve for a 
‘‘host’’ animal. In my own observations of specimens sent me, I 
have found so many instances in which the absence of a great part of 
the wing was caused evidently by the piece having been torn away, 
leaving perhaps as much as an eighth or more attached to the body, 
that it appeared to me that this partial removal had very likely been 
done by means of their flat curved claws, which, if the sides with 
transverse furrows were pressed together, would be admirably suited 
to the work. 
The history of this L. cervi given shortly is that it is one of the 
division of the Pupipara, that is, it multiplies not by depositing an 
egg, or anything like a maggot or larva with the power of moving or 
feeding, but a kind of chrysalis-case or pupariuwm, in which the forming 
insect comes to maturity, and emerges as a perfect fly. 
In regard to the special kind under consideration, it is found on 
the Red and Roe Deer, and on the Continent of Europe also on the 
Elk, whence one of its synonyms, that of Alcephagus pallidus of 
Gimmerthal. Some of the other names under which this species has 
been distinguished by various entomologists according to the especial 
peculiarity which he observed, or the animal on which he studied it, 
D2 
