28 



"In dissecting caterpillars containing maggots, I never have found 

 maggots feeding on the nerve ganglia, as Sasaki has; but I have 

 found them located, as he says near a spiracle of the caterpillar. 

 and enclosed in a sort of sac which is apparently an enlarged 

 tracheal tube, the maggot locating in it when small and the tube 

 becoming enlarged as the maggot grew. Usually there is a black- 

 ening of the caterpillar externally where one of these is located. 

 When about full-grown the maggot leaves the sac and lies length- 

 wise in the caterpillar (or pupa, if it has pupated) eating up all 

 or nearly all of the fatty matter of the latter. 'It may be nearly 

 full-grown at the time the caterpillar pupates, or it may be still 

 quite small; but I never have known of a case where the puparium 

 of the parasite was formed before the caterpillar had pupated. 

 The puparium is cylindrical, rounded at the anterior end, and 

 rather blunt at the posterior end where it is often somewhat widen- 

 ed. It is of a very dark reddish color, and each of the two spiracu- 

 lar orifices at the posterior end has three black rounded protuber- 

 ances around it. The anterior end is always directed anteriorly 

 in the host pupa. The adult fly emerges in about 10 to 14 days 

 from the time the puparium is formed." 



Shortly after the above was published, 1 received a copy of 

 Technical Bulletin Xo. 12, Pt. VI, U. S. Bureau of Entomo- 

 logy, issued Sept. 1008. In this Mr. C. H. T. Townsend give.- 

 the results of observations on the habits of tachinids, gathered 

 from the exi)erience of himself and others in rearing im])orted 

 tachinids at the Gypsy ]\Ioth Laboratory, Melrose Heights, 

 Massachusetts. 



These results were (juite .-startling. Among the sjiecies of Euro- 

 ])ean, Ja]iancse and American tachinids dealt with, there were 

 found to !)(■ tive diti'erent styles of reproductive habit; namely: 

 host-oviposition ; leaf oviposition ; supra-cutaneous host-larviposition ; 

 sub-cutaneous host larviposition and leaf-Iarviposition. 



As a conclusion from these results, great imi)urtance is 

 attached to those species having the leaf-oviposition habit as 

 parasites for the gypsy mulli. All of these species jjroduce 

 large numbers of eggs, as high as 5000 having been fcund cuu- 

 tanuMl in the uterus of one species. 



During the summer of 1909, I have made the following addi- 

 lional observations of interest on Chaetof/aedia monticola. 



A female (taken in the Held) was placed in a cage whei-e 

 there was growing grass on wliicli she might ovijiosit. She 



