OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 13 



The Whole-winged Bugs, on the contrary, are all plant-feeders, 

 and with the exception of a few, such as the Cochineal and Lac in- 

 sects, are injurious. The secretion of a white or bluish, waxy or fari- 

 nose substance, from the surface of the body, is as characteristic of 

 this section as the nauseous odor is of the first. It forms three natu- 

 ral divisions, arranged according to the number of joints to the tarsi — 

 namely, Tkimera, with three joints; Dimera, with two joints, and 

 MoNOMERA, with one joint to the tarsi. 



'^' ' 5 — DiPTERA (otq, twice ; —£/>«, wings) 



or Two-winged Flies. The only Order 

 having but two wings, the hind pair re- 

 placed by a pair of small, slender fila- 

 ments clubbed at tip, and called halteres, 

 poisers, or balancers. (Fig, 7.) 



No Order surpasses this in the num- 

 ber of species or in the immense swarms 

 of individuals belonging to the same 

 species which are frequently met with. 

 AsiLus ]Mis*^ouRiENsis. The wings, which are variously veined, 



though appearing naked to the unaided eye, are often thickly cov- 

 ered with very minute hairs or hooks. As an Order, the D/'piera are 

 decidedly injurious to man, whether we consider the annoyances to 

 ourselves or our animals, of the Mosquito, BafFalo-gnat, Gad-fly, 

 Breeze-fly, Zimb or Stomoxys, or the injury to our crops of the Hessian- 

 fly, Wheat-midge, Cabbage-maggot, Onion-maggot, etc., etc. There 

 are, in fact, but two families, SyrphidcB and TachinidcE, which can be 

 looked upon as beneficial to the cultivator, though many act the part of 

 scavengers. No insects, not even the Lepidoptera, furnish such a 

 variety of curious larval characters, and none, perhaps, offer a wider 

 or more interesting field of investigation to the biologist. It is difficult 

 to give any very satisfactory arrangement of these Two-winged flies, 

 though they easily fall into two rather artificial sections. These are: 

 1st, Nemocera, or those with long antennae, having more than six 

 joints, and palpi, having four or five joints. The pupa is naked, as in 

 the Lepidoptera^ with the limbs exposed. This kind of pupa is called 

 ohteeted. 2d, Brachocera, or those with short antennte, not having 

 more than three distinct joints, and palpi with one or two joints. The 

 pupa is mostly coarctate^ i. e., is formed within, and more or less com- 

 pletely connected with, the hardened and shrunken skin of the larva. 

 The most anomalous of the Diptera are the Forest-flies and Sheep- 

 ticks {Ilippoloscidce). They have a horny and flattened body, and re- 

 semble lice in their parasitic habits, living beneath the hairs of bats 

 and birds. Their mode of development has always attracted the at- 

 tention of entomologists. The larvae are hatched in the abdomen of 

 the female, which is capable of distention. There it remains, and, 

 after assuming the pupa state, is deposited in the form, of a short, whife^ 



