208 



only in tumors. Molts of the first stage were found in the tumors with 

 the second and were the means of connecting the three stages. Larvae 

 of the first stage were more abundant in the earlier part of the collection j 

 in the latter part but few could be found, and later stages were more 

 abundant. Hiurichsen, 1888 (Archiv. f. wiss. u. prak. Thierheilkunde, 

 Bd. XIV, p. 219), found the first stages of a larva he hesitatingly re- 

 ferred to H. bonis in the spinal canals of ten out of twenty-five head of 

 cattle examined. The presence of these larvae of the first stages in the 

 oesophagus, back, subcutaneous tissue and tumors, suggests that the life 

 history of a certain portion of the larvae, if not all, has been overlooked. 

 It is possible that the eggs or young larvae are licked by the cattle from 

 the backs; that the larvae make their way into the oesophageal walls, 

 and from thence, during the proper season, through the back in the 

 neighborhood of the eleventh rib, to the skin. 



Further observations of this parasite will be made throughout the 

 year in order to definitely establish the life history of the youngest 

 stage, which hitherto seems to have been neglected. Illustrations of 

 the various stages of the parasites and the injuries they produce will 

 accompany the detailed report of the investigations which will appear 

 in the publications of the Bureau of Animal Industry. 



THE IMPORTED GIPSY MOTH. 



(Ocneria dispar L.) 



Fig. 36. -Ocneria dispar, female— natural size (after Ratzeburg). 



This conspicuous insect, although not recorded in any of our check- 

 lists of STorth American Lepidoptera, has undoubtedly been present in 

 a restricted locality in Massachusetts for about twenty years. It was 

 imported by Mr. L. Trouvelot in the course of his experiments with 

 silk-worms recorded in the early volumes of the American Naturalist, 

 and certain of the moths escaping, he announced the fact publicly, 

 and we mentioned it in the second volume of the American Entomolo- 

 gist, p. Ill (1870), and in our second report on the insects of Missouri, 

 p. 10. It is, indeed, a curious fact that during these twenty years the 

 insect has not become a pest until last season, and still more curious 



