272 [Senate 



of the yard a bed equally as comfortable and secure as that in which 

 their brethren in the field are at this time reposing. 



Whence does this singular diversity in the habits of these larvse 

 arise ? All the worms are undoubtedly fully matured before the 

 grain becomes ripe and dry and hard. Why then do one part of 

 them leave the wheat heads and enter the ground ere the harvest — 

 and another portion of them remain wdthin the ears to be carried into 

 the barn with the grain when it is housed *? Two well attested ob- 

 servations, I think, shed important light upon this interesting point. 

 And if the inference which I deduce from them be correct, we have 

 arrived at another very curious trait in the economy of this insect. 



Dr. Harris informs us, that " after a shower of rain, they [the larvee] 

 have been seen in such countless numbers on the beards of the vJieat^ as 

 to give a yellow color to the whole field ; " and he refers to the New- 

 England Farmer, vol. xii. p. 60, in confirmation of this statement, a 

 volume which I have not at hand. For an analogous but still more 

 instructive fact, I am indebted to Gen. M'Naughton, a practical far- 

 mer of this town, the accuracy of whose statements no one acquainted 

 with him will doubt. In 1832, his wheat, in which the fly had made 

 sad havoc, w^as cradled and lying in the swath, when a moderate rain 

 came on, followed by a damp cloudy afternoon. At this time, with 

 his hired help, he repaired to the harvest-field to bind up the grain. 

 They here found not only the heads, but also the stravj in its entire 

 length spi'inkled over with these worms. On my observing to him, that 

 I could scarcely believe it possible for a footless w^orm to crav.d along 

 the straw when it was lying horizontally, he stated that he was par- 

 ticularly positive with regard to that fact ; for he distinctly recollect- 

 ed that it was impossible for him to draw the band around a bundle 

 and tie it [in v/hich process the heads of the grain are not touched,] 

 without having at least a half dozen of these v^orms adhering to his 

 hands. 



From these facts, I infer that the worm does not crawl out of the 

 chaff and " drop " itself to the ground, as has been stated by some 

 writers ; but that having attained its growth, it lies dormant vdthin 

 the chaff, aw^aiting a favorable state of the weather in which to make 

 its descent, to wit, a rain w^hich is not immediately follov.'ed by a 

 clear sky and warm sun that would soon dry the straw. Hence it is 

 doubtless almost invariably by night that this journey of the worm 



