ANNOUNCEMENT OF FURTHER RESULTS SECURED 

 IN THE STUDY OF MUSCOID FLIES. 



By Charles H. T. Townsend, 

 Piura, Peru. 



The work on the female reproductive system, eggs, and 

 first-stage maggots of the Tachinid flies and their allies, begun 

 in 1908 by the writer at the Gipsy Moth Parasite Laboratory 

 in Massachusetts, under the direction of Dr. L. O. Howard, 

 Chief of the Bureau of Entomology, has been prosecuted to 

 date as time permitted. The results are now such that it 

 becomes desirable to make an announcement of them in brief. 

 This announcement is in advance of a series of much more 

 complete papers, which will contain plates of the female repro- 

 ductive and accessory organs, eggs, first-stage maggots, and 

 cephalopharyngeal skeletons of the latter, some 200 drawings 

 having already been completed for this purpose. 



The female reproductive and accessory organs in the Mus- 

 coid flies consist of (1) ovaries, (2) oviducts and common ovi- 

 duct, (3) spermathecae and their ducts — 3 in number, (4) tub- 

 ular (or colleterial or accessory) glands and their ducts — 2 in 

 number, (5) uterus when present, including what may be 

 termed the preuterus which is present in some forms, (6) uter- 

 ovagina, being a vagina proper which functions anteriorly 

 as a true uterus when latter is absent, and (7) ovipositor or 

 larvipositor and appendages. 



The functions of most of the above organs are generally 

 understood,, but the following points need mention: 



The tubular glands function as secretory organs for the pro- 

 duction of the viscid fluid for coating the eggs, and are more 

 or less rudimentary in those forms that deposit maggots; the 

 preuterus is a small sac at the head of the uterus, in which the 

 egg of some forms is fertilized before passing into the uterus 

 proper, the spermathecal ducts opening into it ; the uterovagina 

 is a short tube homologous with the so-called insect vagina, 

 its anterior portion filling the office of uterus in those forms 

 without distinct uterus, the spermathecal and tubular gland 

 ducts opening therein, its posterior end filling the office of 

 vagina. The openings of the spermathecal ducts always mark 

 the transition from common oviduct to functional uterus. 



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