224 Journal New York Entomological Society. [Vol. vj. 



14) which had been buried four years and one month. On the dog 

 cadaver, buried two months, was found a fragment of one adult fly. 

 This fly Megnin puts in his second "squad," which arrives on 

 cadavers a few hours after death. The Phorid was found in great 

 numbers in the adult stage, busily feeding upon the contents of the 

 box, which emitted a very pungent ammoniacal odor. 



The Anthomyid was taken in the larval stage and bred in great 

 quantities, in the laboratory, even unto the third and fourth genera- 

 tions. Notes of these breeding experiments were presented to the 

 Entomological Society of Washington and will appear in the forth- 

 coming issue of its Proceedings. Suffice it to say that, contrary to 

 what has generally been known of the Ophyra leucostoma Wied. , it 

 seemed to thrive better upon decaying animal than upon vegetable 

 matter. Megnin places this fly in his fifth ' ' squad, ' ' which he has 

 found on human cadavers buried about two years. It is interesting to 

 note just here that Schoyen found another species of this same genus, 

 Ophyra anthrax Meig. , in one of the cemeteries o Kristiania, in 

 graves which had been dug but two months before, just the period ot in- 

 terment of the dogs in question. Schiner mentions O. anthrax as more 

 rare than O. leucostoma still, in certain places very common ; he found 

 it in great numbers on the body of a dead horse in Kloster-neuberg. 



On dogs buried for three months, this same Anthomyid, O. leu- 

 costoma, was found together with an undetermined Thysanuron and 

 three Acarids of the Gamasid family: Uropoda sp., Gamasus sp. 

 and Hypoaspis sp. The mites belong to Megnin's sixth "squad," 

 found on exposed human cadavers after two or three years. Uropoda 

 I have found on twenty-one human cadavers, interred for periods 

 varying from three years and six months to eleven years and seven 

 months ; Hypoaspis, on a human cadaver buried twenty-eight years ; 

 Gamasus on another, buried thirty-eight years and four months. 

 While belonging to the same genus, it must be noted that the species 

 of Gamasidse found on dog cadavers are not identical with those 

 found upon human cadavers. 



On dogs buried for four months the principal find was the Phorid, 

 Conicera sp. , which was likewise bred in the laboratory through sev- 

 eral generations. This fly is of special interest, because it was prob- 

 ably the first in America recorded by an accurate observer as having 

 been found on a disinterred human cadaver ; it will again be referred 

 to later on. 



