HABITS OF PHORA ALETI.E. 117 



To answer the last argument it may be stated that Fli. incrassata has 

 never been satisfactorily proven to be a bee parasite, in spite of Dr. 

 Packard's statement to the contrary. 



In regard to the first argument, our experience with this particuhir 

 Phora has been quite extensive, and has proven that the eggs are hiid 

 in masses, not necessarily^ upon the insect, and never upon living or 

 healthy insects. The larvse very soon attack any decaying animal or 

 vegetable substance ; but while they may be thickly crawling about and 

 over living larvae, they do not penetrate the same. After the insect 

 was considered a parasite of Aletia we took i)ains to have the actual 

 facts ascertained and verified, and the observations of Messrs. Hubbard 

 and Schwarz are conclusive. A note in the American Entomologist^ III, 

 228, by Mr. Hubbard'*^ to the effect that, from his observations, the 

 flies gathered about moldy food and the excrement of larvae, but never 

 deposited eggs unless they found dead moths, larvae or pupae, and 

 moisture, was the occasion for the following interesting letter from Baron 

 Osten Sacken on the habits of the genus, which was published in the 

 November (1880) number of the American Entomologist: 



The opinion exj)ressecl by Mr. Hubbard in your September number (p. 228) about 

 Phora not being a true parasite holds good, no doubt, in the majority of cases. Among 

 the literature which I have collected on the habits of Phora, I find only one direct 

 statement about larvae of this fly having developed in a living insect. Mr. Brischke 

 (Kleinere Beobachtungen iiber Insecten) received from a coleopterist some pupae and 

 images of Phora, with the remark that the pupae had come out of the anus of a living 

 Osmoderma. The friend very probably meant to say that larvce had come out and had 

 immediately transformed into pupae. The statements of Bouch€ (Katurg. €l. lns.,p. 

 101) are less direct. He obtained larvae of Phora from several specimens of Sphinx con- 

 volvtdi in captivity, and from caterpillars of a Tinea. Although he does not say that 

 the Sphinxes and caterpillars were alive when the larvae emerged from them, we are 

 justified to assume from his wording that the larvae of Phora had lived in their host, 

 while he was alive, although they may have escaped after death. Brischke (L c.) also 

 takes it that way. 



Ferris, in his Insectes du pin maritime, had expressed the same opinion as Mr. Hub- 

 bard, that the larvae of Phora are scavengers, not parasites ; but later (Besultais de 

 quelques promenades e7itomologiques, in Ann. Soc. Ent. Fr., 1873, p.74) he confesses his 

 doubts about the matter. He had obtained a Phora from the nymphae of CocGinella 

 7-punctafa, these nymphae not showing any signs of decay. Curtis (Brit. Ent., 437) 

 and Eondani (Atti, &c.,Milano, 1860) relate similar observations. In such cases the 

 larvae of Phora may have been carnivorous without being parasites; they may have 

 killed the nymphae and eaten their contents. Zetterstedt's statement, ''larva (Phoroe) 

 in Geotrupe nasicorni invema, teste MarTclin," may or may not refer to a case parallel to 

 that of Osmoderma. The case related by Goureau (Ann. Soc. Ent. Fr., 1855, p. 21) of 

 pupae of Phora, found in a box, in which, for about a month, he had kept a pinned 

 Psithyrus, is likewise not conclusive, because the Phorm may have slipped in the box 

 and laid eggs on the putrescent specimen. Still, there is enough to show, in what pre- 

 cedes, that there is something to be learned yet about the habits of. .Phora. — [C. R. 

 Osten Sacken, Heidelberg, Germany, October, 1880. 



Mr. Schwarz's observations on Fhora aletice give, in good form, the 

 habits of the species, and are herewith given in full : 



*'My acquaintance with this particular species of Phora dates back 

 j30 far as the spring and early summer of 1875. In that year, while in 



