16 THE HESSIAN FLY. 



by wholesale houses, and next reaches stables, where it is finally 

 converted into manure, and then is made use of by farmers or 

 market-gardeners. If so, we ought to have the Hessian fly about 

 Kent, especially near the Thames and the Medway, for we receive 

 much London manure. We are also in frequent communication 

 with the Continent, but I have no report of it at present. Possibly 

 the Kentish soil does not produce a growth of wheat and barley 

 agreeable to the insect, owing to its being generally chalky, and it 

 may thrive best where the plants are on clayey or loamy soil. 

 And it has been surmised that the Hessian fly is a lover of 

 moisture; if such be the case, then we may presume that had 1887 

 been a wet instead of a dry summer, we should have found a 

 greater abundance of the insect. 



To the above interesting account of this destructive enemy to 

 important crops we append illustrations, representing its various 

 forms, with explanatory notes, for which we are indebted to 

 Messrs. E. Webb and Sons, Wordsley, Stourbridge, in whose farm- 

 seed catalogue the figures appear with a history of the enemy, and 

 suggested methods for preventing its attacks : — • 



" In the illustration (Fig. 2) we have shown natural size of A, b, 

 c, and D, the eggs, maggots, chrysalids, and perfect insect belong- 

 ing to the Hessian fly. Underneath at e, f, g, and h, the same 

 stages of growth are shown enlarged five diameters. The eggs are 

 shown at a, at the base of a wheat leaf; at b the maggots, often 

 six or eight in number, have emerged from the eggs, and are 

 shown as grown to fully mature examples ; at c the maggots have 

 fixed themselves close to the stem, and after a lapse of five or six 

 weeks have taken on the brown chrysalis or ' flax-seed ' condition ; 

 at D the perfect Hessian fly is shown as it emerges from the 

 chrysalis — i.e., when the latter is about ten days old. The mis- 

 chief is caused by the maggots, which fix themselves on the young 

 corn, or when the corn is older, near the three lowest joints of the 

 stem or close to the root, and there suck the juices of the plant. 

 The effect of this injury is that young plants are killed, and the 

 stems of older plants are so greatly weakened that the ears only 

 produce a icw grains at most, and the corn stem itself commonly 

 bends abruptly down to the ground, either from the root or from 

 one of the joints a little above it." 



