No. 105.] 261 



Kirby, Markwick and Long. Again it ceases to elicit attention, vn- 

 til a period but a little longer elapses, when, in 1828 and the follow- 

 ing years, it forces itself once more and still more prominently into 

 notice. All that I design, is to direct attention to this point : the 

 facts are as yet too few and too vague to justify anything more than 

 a suggestion. The observations of Mr. Kirby, reaching now over 

 half a century, could probably shed some light upon this most inte- 

 resting topic. 



As respects the extent of its range abroad.^ it has been noticed in 

 most of the southern and eastern counties of England, from Cornwall 

 to Norfolk, and also in Shropshire ; in Perthshire and the Lothians, 

 and probably in other districts of Scotland ; and in the north of Ire- 

 land. Whether it occurs upon the continent of Europe, we are not 

 positively informed. It is not noticed by Macquart, either in his 

 Diptera of the North of France, or his Natural History of Dipterous 

 insects (for a perusal of which I am indebted to the courtesy of Dr. 

 T. W. Harris of Harvard University ;) and we can scarcely believe 

 that if it existed in his district, it could have been overlooked by so 

 assiduous a naturalist. M. Herpin, however (as we are told by Mr. 

 Curtis,) isof opinion that it is an inhabitant of France, and the state- 

 ment which he makes strongly supports this opinion. He says, " I 

 have also found in ears of corn, at the time of flowering, many little 

 yellow larvae, very lively, from two to three millimetres long, lodged 

 between the chaff of the grain : these larvse nibble and destroy the 

 generative organs of the plant, and the germen where they are found 

 are sterile. These larvse appear to me to have a very great analogy 

 with those which have been de""scribed in Linnssan Transactions, un- 

 der the name of Tipula Tritici : it is probably a Cecidomyia.^^ M. 

 Herpin placed several ears of diseased barley and wheat in bottles, 

 and in these bottles a number of Cecidorayia flies were afterwards 

 found. Meigen — a copy of whose noted work upon the Diptera of 

 Europe I regret that I have been unable to meet with — as I learn 

 from Mr. Curtis's paper, gives descriptions and figures of the wheat- 

 fly. Were his specimens collected in Germany, or received from 

 Eng-land? 



