Article beginning on page 403.
Psyche 5:403, 1888.

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August-October 1890.1 PSYCHE. 403
than three feet distant and only a few inches above the ground. The flies appeared to
belong to a single species as several were caught for identification, and prove to be a species of IZytkea, one of the e-pkydridae, and probably the European species I. sfilota, as that is the only one recorded from this country.
I shall be glad to know if such
streams have before been observed anlong ephydrtdae.
Samuel H. Scudder.
THE SUPPOSED BOT-FLY PARASITE OF THE
'Box-Tu~~~~.--During the autumn of 1889
Mr. W. H. Ellbworth donated to the Mil-
waukee Public Museum a pair of box-turtles {Cistiido Carolina}, which were taken near windsor, Ct. They were kept alive during the winter in a terrarium, but the female died 5 April 1890. My friend, the talented taxidermist, Mr. C. E. Akeley, while skele- tonizing this specimen called my attention to a peculiar swelling in Hie animal's neck. Closer examination showed that the cntis close to the carapace and a little to the right of the median dorsal line, had been converted into a pocket about 3 of an inch in diameter. This pocket opened on the surface by means ofa very small aperture and contained besides a quantity of suppurative matter, eight mag- gots which I at first took to be bot-fly larvae. Both their shapes and positions with refer- ence to the inner surface of the cavity which they had excavated reminded me of the
Gastro~ilzis larvae so often exhibited in the shops of veterinary surgeons. Such of the larvae as had not been injured during the removal of the skin and flesh from the cer- vical vertebrae of the turtle, buried them- selves in the earth 14-15 April and pupated. The imagines made their appearance 27 May and proved to be not bot-flies at all, but a species of Sarcofhaga.
Prof. S. W. Williston has, directed my
attention to the following note by Packard (American naturalist, 1882, v. 16, p.598) : "The museum of Brown University has
received specimens of a bot-fly maggot, of which eight or ten were taken, according to Prof. J. W. P. Jenks, from under the skin of the back of the neck, close to the shell of the box-turtle (Cistudo carolina). The turtle was collected at Middleboro, Mass." * * * * 'It appears to be a genuine bot-fly, but quite unlike any genus figured by Krauer in his work on the oestridae.
The body is long and slender, cylindrical, tapering so that each end is much alike. The segments are provided with numerous
fine spines, which are not entirely confined to the posterior half or two thirds of the seg- ment. The body is slender and the spines much snlaller than in Gasiro$hilus epii." A comparison of this account with my
observation given above leaves no doubt
that the larvae seen by Packard and myself are specifically identical. I have also com- pared one of the maggots with Packard's
figure and description and can detect no differences. The error into which he has fallen is pardonable, inasmuch as the Sar- coċ´phag larvae are microscopically so simi- lar.to bol-fly maggots that any entomologist unaccustomed to the minute study of dipte- rous larvae would not hesitate to allocate them to the oesfrz'dac. Until the flies ap- peared, I was quite sure that I had found a bot-fly infesting a reptile. (See Proc. acad. nat. sci. Phil., 1887, p. 393-394; 1888, p. 128; Science, j December 1884, v. 4, p. 511.) It would seem to be a regular habit with this fly to infest Cistudo carolina. That the eggs or young larvae are laid on the living ' turtle there can be no doubt, but whether they are deposited in a sore, or on the una- braded skin of the nucha, as being a region inaccessible to the turtle's beak and claws, remains to be seen. ,
The four imagines which I succeeded in
rearing proved to be females and though the species appears not to have been described as yet. I would rather' wait till male speci- mens can be secured, before attempting to add another member to the large and very difficult genus Sarrojhaga.
W. M. Wheeler.




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