ffpulaTritici, and Ichneumon TipuU\ 233 



It is fingnlar that this fpecies of Tipula, which muft neceffarily 

 be very common, fhould never have been noticed. So often as I 

 have been, and at all times, in the corn-fields, with my attention 

 always awake to entomological fubjects, I do not recollect ever fee- 

 ing it before. Since I loft it, I have fearched for it in a field where 

 I found the larvae in the greateft plenty ; I have examined the 

 barn where the corn from that field was laid up; and in both in- 

 flances was equally unfuccefsful. From thefe circumftances it feems 

 probable, that although one or two might be difclofed with me, 

 by being placed in a fituation where the fun fhone upon them, 

 fooner than their natural feafon, yet that in general the fly does 

 not make its appearance until the Spring, fo as to be in readi- 

 nefs to depofit its eggs in the wheat, when it has made fo much 

 progrefs in growth, that the larva may be hatched about the time 

 of its going into bloffom. And I am confirmed in this opinion by 

 another circumftance : A few days fince, with a fine needle, I care- 

 fully took off the thin membrane from two of the pupa? which I 

 had referved, that I might fee how near they were to a change of 

 date; but inftead of difcovering the lineaments of the future fly, the 

 infect was ft ill in the form of the larva*: fo that probably the 

 pupa is not ufually complete until the Spring, and the infect inclofes 

 itfelf in a thin membrane to protect itfelf from the cold of the 

 Winter. 



I obferved above, that the pupae which I met with bore no pro- 

 portion in number to the larva. I have feen more than once feven 

 or eight florets in an ear inhabited by the latter, and fometimes fo 

 many as thirty in a fingle floret, feldom lefs than eight or nine, and 



* It may be objected that this was probably the larva of the Ichmumon, which hid 

 devoured that of the Tipula. To this I reply, that it was in colour, form, and in every 

 refpe£t fo exactly fimilar to the latter that it could be no other. 



Vol. IV. H h yet 



