252 PROF. M. BEZZI. 



Cyperaceae.* We have already shown the wide distribution of these gall-making 

 species, which however are not of economic importance ; they attack only weeds, 

 thus differing from the Chloropidae, which share with Lonchaea the peculiarity 

 of attacking Graminaceae and making galls on them. It is at any rate notable 

 that the gall-making power of the genus Lonchaea is exercised exclusively at the 

 expense of a single family of Monocotyledonous plants. f 



The adult flies of all the above-enumerated ethological groups of the larvae have 

 the arista bare or only microscopically pubescent. 



The last feeding habit of the larvae of Lonchaea has evolved chiefly in warmer, 

 tropical or subtropical countries, and is more important from an economic point 

 of view. This habit is that of feeding on fruits. It is probable that this mode of 

 life arose from larvae entering decayed fruits lying on the ground ; the adults 

 would have been subsequently attracted to deposit their eggs on decaying fruits 

 on the trees themselves, and finally on uninjured mature fruits. Thus the species 

 of Lonchaea have become fruit-flies. 



It is probable that some species are not primary hosts of the fruits in which they 

 are found ; but that they enter those that have decayed owing to the attacks 

 of the true fruit-flies. The researches of Dr. Keilinf have shown that the larvae 

 of the true fruit-flies, like those of Dacus and Anastrepha, do not feed on living 

 tissues, but causes the decomposition of the fruits for their nutrition ; in other 

 words, they are saprophagous and not parasitic ; and indeed they show in their 

 pharyngeal skeleton the characters of the saprophagous and not of the parasitic 

 larvae, contrary to what is observed in the larvae of Trypaneidae, which 

 are parasitic on stems, leaves, etc., or even gall-makers. It would be interesting 

 to study the larvae of Lonchaea from this standpoint to see if the carpophilous species 

 have the " cotes pharyngeennes " characteristic of the saprophagous forms ; 

 and if these " cotes " are present also in those living on decayed matter, as is the rule ; 

 and if those attacking living tissues, or gall-making, have no " cotes," like all the 

 parasitic larvae. 



The observations on the species of Lonchaea as fruit-flies are more recent. For 

 the first time they appeared in South America in the above-cited papers by Hempel 

 (1905 and 1906), and R. von Ihering (1905 and 1912), dealing with Lonchaea pendula, 

 Bezzi (glaberrima or aenea), which is very widely distributed in Brazil and causes 

 damage to fruits of various kind, chiefly those infested by Ceratitis capitata or by 

 Anastrepha fraterculus. In the same year (1905) Broun (see the above-quoted paper) 

 recorded Lonchaea brouniana, Bezzi (splendida) as having been bred in New 

 Zealand from fruits of various kinds infested by Dacus xanthodes, Broun, brought 

 from Fiji. 



In 1913 Prof. Silvestri bred in West Africa Lonchaea plumosissima, Bezzi (glaber- 

 rima) from fruits of Sarcocephalus esculentus infested by Pardalaspis cosyra (giffardi). 



* There is oaly the old and very doubtful observation of Cestoni, reported by Redi 

 iu 1680 and recorded by Osten Saoken in the above-quoted paper of 1883. Even Howard 

 in 1908, i, p. 92, no. 352, does not know other cases. 



fit is very doubtful if the ? Lonchaea sp. of Packard (Guide to the Study of Insects, 

 Ninth Edition, 1888, p. 412 and Forest Insects, 1890, p. 598), the larva of which " raises 

 large blisters on the twigs of the willow," is a Lonchaea at all. 



tC.R. Soc. Biol., lxxiv, 1913, p. 24. 



