Article beginning on page 339.
Psyche 3:339, 1880.

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PSYCHE.
MUSC'A DOMESTICA LINK. VERSUS TrESPA OCC'TDENTALTS CRESSON.
Dnriiig the collecting tqeditions of
his slimmer vacations the writer has had frequent occasions to note the mislead-
ing nature of the vernacular name of the common lionse-flv. It was at first a
matter of surprise to find that wherever our ci~inp was made - whether on the
Lroad plains of western Kansas, many
miles from the nearest human abode.
or in some seclndert caiion of the Rocky monntaiiis but rarely visited by hunters and tourists - the locality was already
occupied in full force by this insect so commonly supposed to he exclusively
found iii and around the permanent
dwellings of the human race. In such
uninhabited localities the tents would be pitched bnt a few lionrs before the)
would become disagreeably filled v~ it11 Hies. all of which, with the ~~eption of an occasional Sto>noxys, were unmihtalc- ably MILSCII do?iiesticu Linn .
\\'bile cauiping in Santa V6 caiion, ?<T. Mexico, in Angust, 18.SO. this plagnr of' flies seemed about to be unusually fir-
midable. On the very first night the
lower surfaces of the roofs and ridge-
poles of the tents were fairlj blackened by the immense multitudes of ilipteions
pests. The next inorning it was 01)-
served, somewhat to the alarm of the
women an(1 children of the party, tl~t
1:irgc iiuml)crb of so-cdl(>d ye11(111~-j:ickrts ( Venpft wrirlp~~tcdis Cr.) were cnteriug the tents. For some time it was sup-
posed that the object of the new comers
was to forage for sngar and other camp
supplies. But before night it was
noticed that the nninbers of flies in the tcuts had been perceptibly reduced, and
on the second morning it was discovered
that the wasps were intent on the ac-
ceptable task of removing our trouble-
some guests. There were generally as
many as forty or fifty wasps in each
tent at once, and each wasp was ob-
served on leaving the tent to be carrying out the body of a fly, not for burial nor as food for its captors, but for storage in the nests of the wasps and n~do~ibt-
e(11.1- as food for their young. Each
captured fly, before removal from the
tents, was deprived of its wings and
legs, and on several n~ornings we were
awakened from our slumbers by these
severed members dropping 11po11 our
faces. The wasps were unremitting in
their labors from daylight to dusk, and
in four or five days the flies had ceased to be troublesome by their numbers, the
wasps having gained upon them so as to
dispose of them almost as rapidly as
they entered the tents. Occasionally a
specimen of Vvspa iiviculatci Linn. was
observed cooperating with V. ncciflentcilis Cr. in the mnoval of the flies.




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