492 C. E. Osten-Sacken on facts concerning the 



species which has not yet made its appearance in 

 America. 



Sarcophaga carnaria, like its congeners, shows, in the 

 larva stage, most remarkable powers of endurance and 

 adaptation. Putrid vegetable matter and dung (Boucbe, 

 Naturg. d. Ins., p. 60); meat, fresh or rotten; ulcers on 

 men and animals suit it well (Portcliinski, ' Trudy ' of 

 the Kussian Ent. Soc, ix., p. 106—109). It will undergo 

 its transformation even when starving and not full-grown 

 (Portchinski, L c). When Claude Bernard introduced 

 the larva artificially into the stomach of a dog, it came 

 out undigested and alive with the dejections. Portchinski 

 tried the same experiment with a frog and a bird {Sijlvia 

 hortensis) ; with the former the larva remained alive ; 

 with the latter it came out dead, but undigested. 



Under such circumstances it was natural to expect 

 that, of all flies which swarm around human dwellings, 

 S. carnaria would be among the first introduced into 

 North America ; and yet such is not the case. After 

 the publication of Mr. E. H. Meade's Monograph of 

 European Sarcophagce (Ent. Mo. Mag., xii., p. 216 sqq.y 

 1876), I sent him for comparison a collection of North 

 American SarcophagcE, in the expectation that European 

 species would be found among them. Mr. Meade found 

 in that collection twenty-four true Sarcophagce and four 

 SarcophagidcE belonging to other genera; but among 

 those species there was not a single one that could be 

 absolutely identified with any European species. A 

 single species from the Far West (Colorado and Lake 

 Superior) comes very near the European S. similis, 

 Meade. 



Now it is well known that Miisca domestica, Cijrtoneiira 

 stabulans, Callipliora romitoria and C. erythrocephala, 

 Anthomyia canicularis and Stomoxijs calcitrans, all of 

 them common European house-flies, are equally common 

 in the Atlantic States of North America ; and also that 

 they have been imported into the most distant colonies, 

 like Chili, Australia, and New Zealand, where they were 

 not indigenous. I{hij2)]ius fenestralis, Scenopinus fenes- 

 tralis, and the handsome green-eyed Scyphella flara occur 

 on windows in North America, just as much as in Europe. 

 Sarcophaga carnaria, as far as I know, has never been 

 mentioned as occurring in any of those countries. (All 

 the above-named flies are, for instance, mentioned by 

 Dr. Schiner in the Novara work as brought home from 



