TITE 



.ccordiiig to At;t of Congress, in the year 1880, by the Hub Publishing Co. of N. Y., 

 in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



VOL, III. 



"SERIES. VUL. 1. 



NEW YORK, DECEMBER, 1880, 



No. 12. 



PUBLISHED MONTHLY I!V 



THE HUB PUBLISHING CO. ok n. y. 



323 Pearl St., New Yopk. 



TERMS Two dollars per annum, in advance. 



EDITED BY 



CHARLES V. RII.EY Washington, D. C. 



ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF CERTAIN BEE- 

 FLIES {Bombyliida).'- 



IIV THE EDITOR. 



We now come to the interesting and 

 hitherto unrecorded life-history of two 

 species of Bee-flies. On p. 305 of our 

 First Report we figured an undetermined 

 egg-parasite of the Rocky Mountain lo- 

 cust, gi\"ing some account of its extensive 

 occurrence in and about tlie egg-pods of 

 that insect, and showing that next to the 

 Anthomyia Egg-parasite it was the most 

 important enemy of the locust. The lar- 

 va was somewhat anomalous. We were in 

 doubt even as to what order of insects it 

 belonged, placing it at the time in the Hy- 

 inepoptera and, with a question, among 

 the Ichneumonidce. From the absence of 

 spiracles on the intermediate abdominal 

 joints we suspected, soon after the publi- 

 cation of our First Report, that this larva 

 would prove to be Dipterous rather than 

 Hymenopterous ; while from such poor 

 descriptions and figures as were extant, 

 that most nearly approached it, we deem- 

 ed it might be Anthracid, and were sub- 

 sequently confirmed in this view by ob- 

 taining, in Octol)er, 1879, a single pupa 

 from a lot of larva; sent us by Mr. (i. M. 

 Dodge of (jlencoe. Neb. Mr. Dodge sent 



us, with the same lot of larv;^, what he 

 supposed to be the parent fly, reared from 

 a lot of locust eggs among which the lar- 

 va; were found. His flies, however, jjrov- 

 ed to lie the Anthomyia Egg-jjarasite {A.an- 

 gusti/rons Meigen, First Report, p. 285 1. 

 The single pupa thus obtained from Mr. 

 Dodge's specimen agrees with those of 

 Sysfivc/ius orcas* O. S., presently to be de- 

 scribed. 



During the past two years we have been 

 in correspondence with Prof. J. G. Lem- 

 mon of Sierra Valley, Cal., who has kind- 

 ly sent us many specimens of the locusts 

 occurring there and especially the eggs 



I Fig. 147 



* From advance sheets of the Second Report of the U. S. 

 Entomological Commission. 



SvsTciicHus OREAS : a, larva ; i^, head, from side; i:, do., 

 from front, partly withdrawn into first joint ; d^ left mandible ; 

 (f, left ma.xifla ; /", prothoracic spiracle ; g^ anal spiracle (after 

 Riley). 



and early stages of Caiiinula pclludda.\ 



Among such eggs these Bee-fly larvae were, 



if anything, more common than we had 



found them among the eggs of CalopteiiKS 



spretus east of the mountains. \Ve here 



quote one letter in illustration : 



By this mail I dispatch another cigar-box filled, 

 this time, with sods containing eggs of tlie terri- 

 ble locust lliat for three years past lias devastated 

 Sierra Valley ; also the large, fat, white larva that 

 lately made its appearance as a voracious feeder 

 upon locust eggs. 



* Western Diptera, p. 254; Bull. Haydcn's (Jeol. and Geogr. 

 .Snr\'eyni.,No, i. 



t This is the (lidipoda atrox of our First Report. 



