102 



Observations on the various Insects 



portions of potatoes. One of the species is very widely spread in 

 the autumn, and lives through the winter : it is named by 

 Gravenhorst Staphylinus nitiduluf, and is now called 



28. Oxytelus nitidulus.* It is only 1^ line long, narrow, fiat, 

 shining black, and coarsely punctured ; the head is broad with 

 several depressions, the oral organs are visible and the eyes 

 prominent ; before them are inserted the 2 horns, which are not 

 longer than the thorax, thickest at the extremity, the 1st long and 

 clavate, 2nd small, 3rd minute, the remainder like strung beads, 

 increasing in size, the terminal joint ovate- conic ; the thorax is 

 broader than the head, somewhat semi-orbicular, with three 

 channels down the back : the elytra are quadrate, chestnut-coloured, 

 black at the base, and appearing striated from short depressed 

 hairs: body nearly as long as the remainder of the insect, intensely 

 black and glossy, elliptical, with 7 distinct segments, the sides 

 margined and pilose, the tail triangular : wings ample, folded 

 beneath the wing-cases : 6 legs short and tawny ; thighs thickened 

 and rather pitchy in the middle ; shanks flattened and serrated, 

 excepting the hinder pair, which are slender : anterior notched 

 outside near the apex ; feet composed of 3 or 4 short and 1 long 

 joint with a pair of slender claws. 



These insects are also found in decaying cucumbers, melons, 

 and various vegetables; they frequent muck-heaps and breed in 

 the dung of animals. 



Potato Flies. 



Dead and silent as the earth appears to be, it teems with life, 

 for not only is the soil full of seeds, which merely require light 

 and heat to start them into life, but it must abound with -the eggs 

 of insects, so minute, that even with the assistance of a lens they 

 escape one's notice. To be convinced of the truth of this, if a 

 flower-pot be filled with mould from a field or garden, and then 

 tied over with the finest muslin, the experimentalist will be 

 astonished to find the multitudes of little flies which are con- 

 stantly making their appearance, bred no doubt from larvae 

 nourished on the vegetable matter which such soils contain. 

 Where crops are grown and any portion of them becomes decayed, 

 the number of these minute insects is vastly multiplied, and thus 

 where the diseased potatoes have existed, additional swarms of 

 various little flies have been the consequence. As a proof of the 

 incredible numbers that must be thus generated, I may mention 

 that from one growing and partially rotten potato I bred, in 

 August, 1845, 128 flies, independent of many more which had 

 died in the pupa state, or been destroyed by clamp and mites 



* Curtis's Guide, Genus 216, No. 16. 



