228 Journal New York Entomological Society. |Voi. vi. 



1 am thoroughly convinced that we can not, as yet, make any broad, 

 universally applicable generalizations on this subject. The field is far 

 too broad, the important and modifying factors are far too numerous 

 and conflicting, the conditions vary far too widely to be thus compre- 

 hended in any concise, unqualified formula. The only conclusion I 

 can reach, as the result of my studies thus far, is that it is not safe to 

 draw any conclusion at all. The vital point upon which the whole of 

 Megnin's theory of the fauna of exposed cadavers turns, is that the 

 various insects appear in distinct "squads," at definite and specified 

 periods of cadaveric decomposition, and that they succeed each other 

 in regular order. That this proposition does not in any particular ap- 

 ply to the observations here noted is most evident from the following 

 brief resume of the work, taking only the more important mites, bee- 

 tles and flies : 



Acarina, 8 species found in 30 cases, interred from 3 years and 



2 months to 7 1 years. Coleoptera, Pselaphidse, 2 species found in 3 

 cases, interred from i-6 years and 5 months to 28 years. Staphylini- 

 dse, Homalota, found in 4 cases, interred from 1 year and 1 1 months 

 to 1 o years ; Staphylinus found in 1 case, interred 1 5 years and 5 

 months ; Philonthus found in one case, interred 5 years and 4 months ; 

 Actobius found in 22 cases, interred from 3 years' and 2 months to 10 

 years ; Lathrobium found in 3 cases, interred from 4 years and 4 

 months to 9 years and 9 months ; Pazderus found in 1 case, interred 



3 years and 2 months ; Eleusis found in 56 cases, interred from 1 year 

 and 11 months to 11 years and 2 months. Nitidulidae, Rhizophagus 

 found in 10 cases, interred from 1 year and 11 months to 28 years. 

 Diptera, Phoridse, puparia found in 43 cases, interred from 3 years and 



2 months to 38 years; Muscidae, 2 species found in 5 cases, interred from 



3 days to 4 years and 1 month ; Anthomyidse, Homalomyia found in one 

 case, interred 2 years and 1 1 months ; Sepsidse, Piophila found in 1 3 

 cases, interred from 3 years and 2 months to 10 years and 3 months. 



Since the completion of this paper, the writer has received a re- 

 print of Johnston & Villeneuve's paper, "On the Medico-Legal Ap- 

 plication of Entomology," which was "read before the Canadian 

 Medical Association, Montreal, August, 1896," and published in the 

 Montreal Medical Journal, August, 1897. These authors assert that 

 " one may now judge from the animal fauna met with in a dead body 

 how long it has been exposed." But they add : " The chief danger 

 to be feared from Megnin's imitators is that they might tend to indulge 



