INSECTS INJURIOUS TO AGRICULTURE. 



195 



wheat and burning the stub- 

 ble are of doubtful use, as 

 this destroys the useful para- 

 sites as well as the flies. 



The Wheat-midge (Di- 

 plosis tritici Kirby). 

 This species injures the 

 head. Several minute 

 orange-red maggots., an 

 eighth of an inch long, 

 crowding around the ker- 

 nels of wheat, cause them 

 to shrivel and dry when 

 ripe. The maggots de- 

 scend into the ground and 

 spin minute cocoons, from 

 which in the following 

 June emerge bright 

 orange - colored midges. 

 This insect is far less 

 common and destructive 

 than the Hessian fly. 



REMEDY. Plough deep 

 after harvest, and burn the 

 " screenings" after threshing. 



Chinch - bug (Blissus 

 leucopterus Say). This 

 bug, while young, sucks 

 the roots of wheat and 

 corn, afterwards infesting 

 in great numbers the 

 stalks and leaves, punc- 

 turing them with its 

 beak. It appears early 

 in June, and there is a 

 summer and an autumn 

 brood, the adults hiber- 

 nating in the stubble. 



FIG. 238. Wheat-midge, a, male; b, fe- 

 male; c, wing, enlarged ; d, antenna) joints 

 of male; e. of female; /, ovipositor, with 

 its two sliding tubes and terminal appen- 

 dages for guiding the eggs, g; h, larvae on 

 a kernel; i, the larva, enlarged; i', the 

 same, natural size: j, the same crawling, 

 with its antennae extended; k, anterior, I, 

 posterior, eiid. After Fitch. 



