44 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



THE CLOVER-SEED FLY— A NEW INSECT PEST. 



BY J. A. LINTNER, N. Y. STATE MUSEUM NAT. HIST., ALBANY. 



In the summer of 1877, my attention was called to some " worms" 

 which had been discovered in the heads of red clover (Trifolium pra- 

 tense), and were said to be preying upon the seeds. They were found to 

 be minute maggot-like creatures, hidden within the seed-pods and entirely 

 destroying the seeds which they attacked. Numbers of them were sub- 

 sequently detected in the examination of heads of clover taken from 

 several localities in the vicinity of Albany, and in Warren County, N. Y. 

 I was unable at the time to refer the insect to any described species, or 

 to find any record of a similar depredation on clover seeds in this country 

 or in Europe. 



The following season, additional examples of infested clover heads 

 were submitted to me, which had been sent from Mr. George W. Hoff- 

 man, President of the N. Y. State Agricultural Society, from Elmira, N. Y. 

 A number of the larvae were obtained from these heads, and their careful 

 examination enabled me to refer them to the Cecidomyidae — of a species 

 probably closely related to the well-known wheat-midge, Cecidomyia 

 destructor. Several of the larvae were preserved in alcohol, and the larger 

 number placed in a pot of damp sand, in which they speedily buried 

 themselves for their transformation. The perfect fly has not yet made its 

 appearance, but it is hoped that the final change will soon take place and 

 the specimens be secured. 



At the recent Annual Meeting of the N. Y. State Agricultural Society, 

 in this city, in January last, in a paper presented to the Society, on some 

 Injurious Insects observed during the past year, I gave an account of this . 

 new depredator upon an important crop, and described its larva, as 

 follows : 



Cecidomyia trifolii, n. sp. — Head subacute, subtriangular, slightly 

 rounded laterally on its posterior half, giving that portion a subquadrang- 

 ular form ; a short cylindrical horny? process at its tip, and two longer 

 antennal processes, cylindrical, tapering apically. Body elliptical, mod- 

 erately constricted at the joints, flattened on the sides, rather rounded 

 behind, delicately shagreened, laterally at about the middle of each seg- 

 ment, a short fleshy papilliform process, with two short bristles of unequal 



