The American Naturalist. 
A NEW CATTLE-PEST. 
/^N October 5, 1887, 1 received from Professor Cope specimens 
of a fly taken from the cattle of Mr. Thomas Sharpless, of 
West Chester, Pa., with the information, shortly afterwards, that 
the flies had been observed during the year at that place in small 
swarms, resting on the horns of the cattle, near the base, when 
not feeding, having the appearance, at a short distance, of small 
patches of foreign matter. The horns were merely a resting- 
place, to which the flies quickly returned when disturbed or 
driven away, the individual flies feeding upon the blood of the 
animals, concealed in the hair along the flanks. The flies, I was 
also told, were observed the same year on the land of Mr. George 
Pim, of Marshallton, Chester county. 
I am thus particular in giving the facts as told to me, for this 
is the first record, of which I am aware, of the introduction from 
Europe of a cattle pest that bids fair to extend itself over the 
whole United States, and be as troublesome as its nearly related 
pest, the well-known stable-fly, or cattle-fly, also European origi- 
nally, Stomoxys calcitrans, Linn. • 
I had never seen or heard of the fly before, and for that reason 
immediately reached the conclusion that it was an introduced 
species. A careful search of the literature, however, gave but 
slight clue to its identity, though it was immediately seen to be a 
member of the genus Hcematobia, which, by Schiner, was looked 
upon as forming a division of the genus Stomoxys. In the early 
spring of the following year specimens of the same fly were sent 
me by Professor Riley, from, I believe, somewhere in New York 
and New Jersey, and more recently Mr. Howard reports it from 
Delaware and Virginia. Not knowing what else to call the in- 
sect, I gave it the provisional name H. cornicola. The examina- 
tion, for the first time the past spring, of male specimens, sent me 
by Mr. Howard, led me to suspect that the species was identical 
with H. serrata Robineau Desvoidy, from the south of France, 
and in a late number of Entomologica Americana the fly was de- 
