Notes on the Calliphorinae. Part I. The Oriental Species

Extract

For many years I have collected and bred the Indian Calliphorinae, and recently contributed a number of papers describing the common species. In the first of these, which appeared in a recent number of the Indian Journal of Medical Research (viii, no. 1, July 1920), I described in some detail the egg, larva, puparium and adults of Chrysomyia bezziana, Villeneuve, the Old World screw-worm fly, and pointed out that this species is a specific myiasis-producing Calliphorine, only breeding in living tissues, and that its larvae may be found in all forms of cutaneous, subcutaneous, nasal, oral, aural and vaginal myiasis in man and animals. In the succeeding papers I described the larvae, puparia and adults of the other common species, two of which, Chrysomyia megacephala and Lucilia argyricephala, occasionally cause myiasis in animals in India. It was not possible at the time to determine the non-myiasis-producing species, and new names were given them. But recently, when studying the species of Musca in the National Collection at the British Museum, I was able to examine Walker's types and am now in a position to give these Indian species their correct names. At the same time I have examined all the Calliphorine material in the National Collection from other parts of the world, as well as many specimens in my own collection, and I propose in this and in succeeding notes to collect together all the results of my studies with a view to revising later the species of blow-flies. Here again I am deeply indebted to Major E. E. Austen, D.S.O., for the valuable help he has given me in this work.