124 INSECTS AFFECTING DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 
The recognition of the injurious nature of the insect appears to have 
been in the early days of American settlement, and its description has 
occupied the attention of numerous naturalists. Indeed, it has an 
appalling synonymy, no less than twenty-six names having been applied 
to forms which are considered gh good authorities as representatives of 
this species. 
It will be useless to attempt Hees a discussion of this synonymy, but 
I may quote from an article by Dr. Williston ' the more important points 
in this connection, along with an extract from a Spanish article on the 
subject, and simply add here that valuable contributions have been 
made to the knowiedge of its attacks on domestic animals by Prof. H. 
A. Morgan,’ of the Louisiana Experiment Station, Prof. H. EK. Weed,* 
of the Mississippi Experiment Station, and Dr. M. Francis,‘ of the - 
Texas Station, whose papers will be drawn from in discussing certain 
phases of the subject. 
Dr. Williston’s article is as follows: 
In connection with Professor Snow’s article on this fly® it seems worth while to 
give a brief synopsis of papers published in the past few years by the able dipterol- 
ogist of South America, Dr. E. L. Arribdlzaga, of Buenos Ayres. From his studies 
he has ascertained no less than twenty-six different specific names that this fly had 
received. It is possible that some of these names would apply to distinct species 
were their types examined, but it is a thankless task to endeavor to make order out 
of the chacs in which Walker, Macquart, and Robineau-Desvoidy have involved the 
subject, and the results of Arribdlzaga’s thorough studies can with propriety be 
adopted. To these results, however, Mr. J. Bigot, of Paris, has recently taken 
_ exception in a note® on Professor Snow’s paper. This author’s penchant for making 
synonyms himself may perhaps have something to do with his wishing to preserve 
species founded on inadequate grounds. His argument that ‘‘il me semble fort 
hasardeux d’avancer qu’un seule et méme espéce se retrouve, en permanence, depuis 
les confins de la Patagonie jusqu’au dela des provinces centrales de ’ Amérique du 
Nord, vivant indifféremment sous les zones torrides, tempérées et méme froides!”’ 
is of little value, when the author himself should know that other American flies do 
have a similar range of habitat, to say nothing of the nearly allied Musca domestica. 
The specimens which Professor Snow sent me for examination, although somewhat 
injured, certainly seem to me to be Compsomyia macellaria (Fab.) E. Leh. A. The 
species may, with tolerable certainty, be recognized by its having a bright metallic 
green or coppery color on the abdomen and thorax, the latter above with three black 
stripes; the bristle of the antennze feathered to the tip, and the head, except the 
eyes, chiefly yellow. In size it varies from 7 to 10 millimeters. 
However, these systematic details will be of less interest than the following, which 
I translate from the Spanish of Arribdélzaga:7 
‘‘During the pleasant days of spring or the hotter ones of summer, these flies may 
be seen covering in great numbers, now umbelliferous flowers, now all sorts of filth; 
or, resting, there glistens in the sunlight the iridescent surface of their half-opened 
wings, and the blue, the green, the violet, the copper, and the gold of their metallic 
colored bodies. 
‘Psyche, Vol. IV, pp. 112-114. 
2? Bulletin No. 2, 2d series, Louisiana Experiment Station. 
> Bulietin No. 14, Mississippi Experiment Station (1891). 
4 Bulletin No. 12, Texas Experiment Station (1890). 
5 Psyche, Mar.—Apr., 1883, Vol. IV, pp. 27-30. 
6 Bull. Soc. Entom. France, 12 Sept., 1883, No. 17, pp. 154-155. 
7 Anales de la Soc. Cientifica Argentina, Vol. X, pp. 80-84. 
setae 
SA BR Mtn Fi eta 
VK sts esta eee EME ap: 
ae, ier 
4 
* ‘ 
5 
t 
: 
