THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 131 



cheese. Once I discovered a single specimen under a flat, submerged 

 stone, in a little running brook. And finally, I once met with one 

 alive, under a log, on a piece of dry land which had been submerged 

 two or three weeks before, whence it appears that it can exist a long 

 time out of the water. I had, on several previous occasions, failed to 

 breed this larva to maturity, and the only imago I have, was obtained 

 in 1861, from larvre, which, suspecting them to be carnivorous from 

 the very varied stations in which they had occurred, I had supplied 

 with a number of fresh-water mollusks, but the habits of which, in con- 

 sequence of having been away from home, I was unable to watch. On 

 September 2d, 1863, I found a nearly full-grown larva amongst floating 

 rejectamenta, and between that date and September 23d, he had de- 

 voured the mollusks of eleven univalves {Gen. Planorbis) from one- 

 half to three-fourths of an inch in diameter; and on three separate 

 occasions I have seen him work his way into the mouth of the shell. 

 In this operation his pseudopods were energetically employed, and I 

 found, on cracking the shells after he had withdrawn, that a small 

 portion of the tail end of the animal was left untouched— no doubt 

 in consequence of his being unable to penetrate to the small end of 

 the whorl of the shell— and also the skin of the remaining part, and 

 the horny-tongued membrane." 



My larva transformed to pupa (Fig. 97, b) within the ground, during 

 the lore part of July ; it remained in this state but a few days, and 

 the fly issued July 13th, and soon made its presence known by its loud 

 buzzing inside the jar. It was a perfect $ specimen, and the pupal 

 integument was sufficiently firm and polished, that by carefully wash- 

 ing off the earth, an excellent cabinet specimen was obtained, which 

 retained almost the exact form and appearance of the living pupa. 

 Before the escape of the fly which was effected through a longitudi- 

 nal fissure on the back of the head and thorax, reminding one of the 

 mode of escape of our Harvest-flies (Cicadce), this pupa by means 

 of the thorns with which it is furnished, had pushed itself up to the 

 surface of the earth. My specimen being female, may account for the 

 very slight difference between the following description and that of 

 Mr. Walsh's. 



Pupa, (described from pupal integument). — Cylindrical, lying- curved as in the figure ; rounded 

 at the head, and tapering at the last two joints ; pale semi-transparent yellowish-brown. Head 

 with two transverse, narrow-edged, somewhat crescent-shaped dark-brown projections representing 

 the mouth, two rounded tubercles above, on the front, of the same color, and each giving out a 

 stiff bristle ; and midway between these four, two much smaller, lighter, rounded tubercles, set 

 closer together; on each side in a line with the upper tubercles, a wrinkled antenna, trigonate at 

 base, appressed to the surface and pointing outwards ; below these antenna}, on the eyes, two small 

 bristled warts. Thorax, pronotum commencing behind antenna, with a pair of small bristled brown 

 tubercles* on its anterior dorsal submargin ; mesonotum twice as long as pronotum, with a pair 

 of large obliquely-placed, reniforra, purple-brown tubercular spiracles, bordered on the outside 

 above, with a distinct fine white line ; between these spiracles are four small brown elevations the 

 two middle ones quite small and close together; a short metanotal piece, about one-seventh as long 



^Evidently not spiracles as Mr. Walsh supposed. The mesonotal spiracles are well defined, with 

 the white border above mentioned, and the abdominal spiracles are each marked behind by a dis- 

 tinct white line ; but these tubercles have no such annulus and are illy defined. 



