(119) 



360 C. .GORDON HEWITT. 



able that it occasionally may bear intestinal bacilli on its 

 appendages or body and thus carry infection. Its flesh-seek- 

 ing habits may also render it liable to carry the bacilli of 

 anthrax should it have access to infected flesh. 



(8) Muscina (Cyrtoneura) stabulans Fallen. 



This common species is frequently found in and near houses. 

 I have usually found it occurring with H. canicularis in the 

 early summer (June) before M. domestica has appeared in 

 any numbers. It is larger than M. domestica, and more 

 robust in appearance. Its length varies from 7 to nearly 

 10 mm. Its general appearance is grey. The head is 

 whitish-grey with a " shot " appearance. The frontal region 

 of the male is velvety black and narrow ; that of the female 

 is blackish-brown, and is about a third of the width of the 

 head. The bristle of the antenna bears setae on the upper 

 and lower sides. The dorsal side of the thorax is grey and 

 has four longitudinal black lines ; the scutellurn is grey. The 

 abdomen, as. also the thorax, is really black covered with 

 grey; in places it is tinged with brown, which gives the 

 abdomen a blotched appearance. The legs are rather slender, 

 and are reddish-gold or dirty orange and black in colour. 



The eggs are laid upon the following substances, on which 

 the larvae feed : Decaying vegetable substances such as fungi, 

 fruit, cucumbers, decaying vegetables, and they sometimes 

 attack growing vegetables, having been introduced probably 

 as larvae with the manure, as they also feed on rotting dung 

 and cow-dung. Howard (1. c.) found the fly frequenting 

 him an excrement, and observed the species breeding in the 

 same. In the United States it has been reared from the pupae 

 of the cotton-worm and the gipsy moth Riley was of the 

 opinion that in the first case it fed on the rotten pupae only. 

 In 1891 it was also reared on the masses of larvae and pupae 

 of the elm-leaf beetle. Other observers record it as being 

 reared from the pupae of such Hymenoptera as Lophyrus. 

 In all these cases of its occurrence in the pupae of insects, it 



