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JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 



[Vol. 8 



Morning Session, Thursday, December 31, 1914, 9.00 a. m. 



President H. T. Fernald: The first paper on the program will 

 be by Mr. J. M. Aldrich. 



THE ECONOMIC RELATIONS OF THE SARCOPHAGIDiE 



By J. M. Aldrich, Assistant in Cereal and Forage Insect Investigations, 

 Bureau of Entomology 



The classification of this family has been until within a few years in 

 a very unsatisfactory condition throughout the world. However, 

 the study of the male genitalia has recently solved the problem in 

 Europe, and in that region the species of Sarcophaga are perhaps more 

 satisfactorily distinguished now than those of any other large Muscoid 

 group, although there is still much uncertainty as to where the limits 

 of the group lie. Mr. Parker's work on the American species, begin- 

 ning about two years ago, and my own beginning last winter, have 

 shown conclusively that the North American species yield to the 

 same treatment; while as yet we have no specific names for many 

 of the forms, it will be only a matter of a year or so until this will be 

 remedied. Meanwhile I wish to call attention to the larval habits of 

 a considerable number of bred species which have passed through 

 my hands for identification. 



The notion that Sarcophagidse are flesh-flies'^ is derived from 

 Linnaeus and his predecessors, and is no doubt true as to the typical 

 species carnaria in Europe; but it is very misleading in our fauna. 

 Herms bred S. assidua and sarracenice from dead fish on the beach of 

 Lake Erie, and I have collected adults of the latter on dead fish on 

 the beach of Lake Michigan; Parker's new cooleyi feeds on dead fish 

 in Montana; I have also noted adults of another species on dead snails 

 along the banks of the lower Wabash River in Indiana. There is also 

 the classical case of the larvae of S. sarracenice, bred by Riley from the 

 contents of the cups of Sarracenia variolaris. Several records of feed- 

 ing in decomposing flesh of the warm-blooded animals, not 3^et pub- 

 lished were communicated to me very recently, but the principal ones 

 are from the far south (Texas). 



The excrement of mammals furnishes a breeding-place for a con- 

 siderable series of species: S. assidua, cooleyi, hcemorrhoidalis, trivialis, 

 incerta and lamhens, and Ravinia communis, latisetosa, peniculata, 

 quadrisetosa and trivialis seem to be rather closely restricted to this 

 breeding habit; S. sarracenice and helicis, which have also been re- 

 ported, have other more common habits. 



Parasitism on o-'"^'^^' Ar+hropods includes hy far the largest part of 



