222 Forty-second Report on the State Museum. [80] 



Upon making inquiry of Dr. S. W. Williston, who is conceded to be 

 the best authority among us on American Diptera, of his knowledge 

 of the insect, reply was made that he had received specimens of it 

 from several sources during the past year, and that it was a new 

 species of Stomoxys which he would soon describe under the name of 

 cornicola* 



Previous to this, it seems to have excited considerable attention 

 throughout the State of New Jersey during the year 1887, and was 

 accordingly made the subject of inquiry and remark at the Annual 

 Meeting of the State Board of Agriculture held at Trenton on the 3d 

 of February, 1888. The principal statements of interest made, were, 

 that it appeared at different localities about the same time, viz., in the 

 early morning before daylight. It was particularly fond of fastening 

 itself on the udders of the cows, or where the skin of the animal is 

 the thinnest. When the animal is lying down it settles on the thin 

 skin behind the shoulder-blades. It often collected about the horns, 

 and this spot would be covered with its excreta. It followed the 

 cattle into the stall where it annoyed them both in the morning and 

 evening. It had not been seen on horses or mules — only on cattle. 

 Specimens of it had been sent to the Department at Washington, and 

 it was learned from the Entomologist that it had not been seen by him 

 before, and could not at present be named, f 



Identical with an European Species. 

 Although new to all of our entomologists, it did not seem wise to 

 accept it as a species that had long been with us and chanced to have 

 remained undetected until it suddenly developed a new and peculiar 

 habit of annoyance. So many of our more noted insect pests have, 

 through the daily intercommunications of commerce been transferred 

 from Europe to our shores, that it was quite probable that this also 

 had a similar origin — the more so since the Diptera could be so easily 

 carried on shipboard. A number of examples of the fly were therefore 

 obtained and sent to Baron Osten Sacken of Heidelberg, Germany, 

 whose special study of the Diptera during the past forty years, both in 

 this country and in Europe have given him the highest rank among the 

 Dipterologists of the world. He kindly returned answer that the 

 insect, although a true Stomoxyd, and allied to Stomoxys calcitrans, was 

 easily distinguishable from it in the following characters : 1. Its smaller 

 size and more uniformly grayish-brown color. 2. Its long palpi, 

 nearly as long as the horny, porrect proboscis. 3. The structure of 

 the hind tarsi in the male, the two long basal joints of which show a 



* See Country Gentleman of October 18. 1888, p. 779, where the proposed specific name 

 is erroneously given as cervicola. 

 t Fifteenth Ann. Eept, N. J. Stale Board of Agriculture, 1888, p. 163. 



