[Berliner Entomolog. Zeitschrift Bd. XXXI. 1837. Heft IL] 17 
® 
On Mr. Portchinski’s publications on the larvae of 
Muscidae 
including a detailed abstract of his last paper: Comparative 
biology of the necrophagous and coprophagous larvae 
by 
©. R. Osten Sacken. 
For many years past Mr. Joseph Portchinski (at present 
Secretary of the Entomological Society in St. Petersburgh) has been 
devoting a great deal of time to the study of the life-habits of car- 
nivorous and coprophagous larvae of Museidae, and several valuable 
publications on that subject are due to his pen already. But as 
most of these publications are written in russian, they’ have remained 
less known than they deserve. 
In 1874 appeared the Observations on the natural history of 
Cynomyia mortuorum (Trudy of the Russian Entomological Society 
Vol. VO, p. XXXU—XXXVD. In order to ascertain the successive 
appearance of different necrophagous flies with the advancing season, 
the author used to lay out dead bodies of small vertebrates, birds, 
rats etc. and to breed the maggots that speedily accumulated in them. 
Cynomyia was abundant in the spring; Calliphora vomitoria began 
to appear about the middle of June only. Thus two sparrows laid 
out on June 8 gave 41 speeimens of Cynomyia mortuorum, 9 Lu- 
eilia caesar, 56 specimens of different Anthomyiae and only three 
Calliphorae. After that Oynomyia began to disappear and was 
gradually replaced by Calliphora; (we shall return to this subject 
further on). 
| In 1875—76 Mr. Portchinski published an elaborate paper, en- 
titled Materials for the natural history of the flies which, in their 
larva-stage, cause diseases among men and animals (Trudy etc. Vol. 
IX, p. 3—180 with three plates). A condensation of a portion of 
this paper, concerning Sarcophila Wohlfahrti, was published in the 
Horae Soc. Ent. Ross. Vol. XI, 1875, p. 123—160 in german under 
the title: Krankheiten, welche im Mohilewschen Gouvernement von 
Larven von Sarcophila Wohlfahrti entstehen, und deren Biologie. 
XXXI. Heft I. 2 
