0. (JOnnON IfEWITT. 
8C)0 
able that it occasionally may bear intestinal bacilli on its 
appendages or body and thus carry infection. Its flesh-seek- 
ing habits may also render it liable to carry the bacilli of 
anthrax should it have access to infected flesh. 
(8) Muscina (Cyrtoneura) stabulans Fallen. 
This common species is frequently found in and near houses. 
I have usually found it occurring with H . canicularis in the 
early summer (June) before M. domestica has appeai’ed in 
any numbers. It is larger than M. domestica, and more 
robust in appearance. Its length varies from 7 to nearly 
10 mm. Its general appearance is grey. The head is 
whitish-grey with a “ shot ” appearance. The frontal region 
of the male is velvety black and narrow ; that of the female 
is blackish-brown, and is about a third of the width of the 
head. The bristle of the antenna bears set^ on the upper 
and lower sides. The dorsal side of the thorax is g’rey and 
has four longitudinal black lines ; the scutellum is grey. The 
abdomen, as also the thorax, is really black covered with 
grey; in places it is tinged with brown, which gives the 
abdomen a blotched appearance. The legs are rather slender, 
and are reddish-gold or dirty orange and black in colour. 
The eggs are laid upon the following substances, on which 
the hirvm feed : Decaying vegetable substances such as fungi, 
fruit, cucumbers, decaying vegetables, and they sometimes 
attack growing vegetables, having been introduced probably 
as laivtB with the manure, as they also feed on rotting dung 
atid cow-dung. Howard (I. c.) found the fly frequenting 
him an excrement, and observed the species breeding in the 
same. In the United States it has been reared from the pupm 
of the cotton-worm and the gipsy moth ; Riley was of the 
opinion that in the first case it fed on the rotten pupm only. 
In 1891 it was also reared on the masses of larva) and pupm 
of the elm-leaf beetle. Other observers record it as being 
reared from the pupa) of such Hymenoptei’a as Lophyrus. 
In all these cases of its occurrence in the pupae of insects, it 
