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Families Sapromyzidae, Lonchaeidae and Ortalidae

The flies of the family Sapromyzidae much resemble those of the last mentioned group, but the wings are rarely spotted. The abdomen is usually rather broad, and short, and egg-shaped. Their larvae are found under the bark of trees or in the burrows of wood-boring insects, or in decaying vegetation of almost any kind. The flies are commonly found in damp spots near their breeding places.

The Loncheidae is a group which was formerly included in the preceding family and which it very much resembles. The metamorphoses are not well known, but the larvae of one species have been found in Europe in the stems of weedy plants, and of another in the rootlets of wheat. In this country I have bred Lonchaea polita from dung.

The Ortalidae comprises a group of flies with usually spotted or banded wings, and frequently of metallic colors. In the larval state they occur under the bark of pine and poplar and in the burrows of wood-boring insects and also in onions, cotton bolls, apples, and the fruit of the Osage orange, probably in all cases, however, following the work of some other insect. Strictly speaking, therefore, these flies are scavengers. The brown winged species of the genus Pyrgota are the largest flies of this family which we have in this country. Camptoneura picta Fabr. is a beautiful little fly with brown wings in which the brown is incised with clear spaces. Chaetopsis aenea has been reared from corn stalks, which however, as with the other species, had previously been bored by some other insect.