﻿OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 181 



which it attacked while living ; and have known it to infest the com- 

 mon Walking-stick {Spectrum femoraium). Indeed, the species is 

 a most widely-spread and general scavenger, occurring in most civil- 

 ized countries, and feeding as a rule on dead and decaying animal 

 matter, and only exceptionally on living insects. By way of illustra- 

 ting its transformations, I introduce a figure of the Sarracenia Flesh-fly 

 '{SarcopJiaga sarracenice Riley) which feeds on the dead insects 

 caught in those curious traps, the trumpet-leaves {Sarrace7iia)^2in(i 

 which so closely resembles the common Flesh-fly in question, that it 

 is probably only a variety/'' These flies deposit living larvae, which 

 are distinguished from those of the Tachina-flies by being more con- 

 cave and truncated at the posterior end. (See Fig. 39, «.) TheTachina 

 larva is rounded posteriorly, with a small spiracular cavity, easily 

 closed, and having a smooth rim : it contracts to a pupa which is 

 quite uniformly rounded at each end. The Sarcophaga larva is more 

 truncate behind, with fleshy warts on the rim of the spiracular cavity, 

 and with a more tapering head : it contracts to a pupa, which is also 

 truncate behind, and more tapering in front, where the prothoracic 

 spiracles show as they never do inTachina. 



REMEDIES : HOW UEST TO PREVENT LOCUST INJURIES. 



In considering this subject, it will be advisable to classify the 

 agencies to be employed by the husbandman iu protecting himself 

 from Locust injuries. We shall then find that they may be classed 

 under four heads: 1st, natural agencies; 2d, artificial means of de- 

 stroying the eggs ; 3d, such means of destroying the unfledged young ; 

 4th, remedies against the mature and winged insects. 



1st — The natural agencies, which I have just enumerated, should 

 be encouraged as far as it is possible to encourage them ; and it is 

 very gratifying to know that the last Kansas Legislature had a suffi- 

 cient appreciation of this matter to pass a law prohibiting the destruc- 

 tion of prairie chickens and quails. 



2d — In the destruction of the eggs, man can accomplish most in 

 his warfare with the insect. This fact has long been recognized in all 

 European and Asiatic countries that suffer from locust depredations; 

 and in France, Italy and several other countries, a reward of so much 



•The flies bred from Caloptcnushiwa the tip of the abdomen reddish, as in Sarcophaga sarrace- 

 nia, and indeed are undistinguishable from the smaller specimens of this last. The larva dillers, how- 

 ever, in having the surface more coarsely granulated, it being regularly and uuiformly covered with 

 iininute papillae ; in the less conspicuous prothoracic spiracle ; in tlie smaller but deeper anal cavity ; 

 juid in the rim of this cavity having the twelve tubercles more conspicuous. The pupa also has the anal 

 <',avity smaller, more closed, but deeper ; and the prothoracic spiracles less prominent. Iu these 

 respects it agrees more closely with the typical carnaria, as described by I'ackard, and I have little 

 -doubt but all these diflerences are simply varietal. 



