No. 105.] 275 



ral papers. It results from the operations of this bird. Alighting, it 

 adroitly grasps the wheat stalk just below the ear, and clinging fear- 

 lessly to it, even when swayed to and fro by the wind, it with its bill 

 parts down the chaff from the grain, and one after another of the worms 

 to which it thus gains access are rapidly picked off and devoured. 

 Thus several heads are generally freed from the worms, ere its repast 

 is completed. That it is the worms and not the grain that it is in pur- 

 suit of, is readily ascertained by an inspection of the heads after the 

 bird has left them : many of the kernels, not being sufficiently loosened 

 to drop to the ground by the operation, will be found remaining, the 

 maggots that were upon them only having been removed ; whilst those 

 kernels of the head which are not infested by the worm, are passed 

 over untouched. It is curious that this little creature, by a tap with 

 its horny bill, or some other process, is enabled to distinguish those 

 scales of chaff which conceal so minute a worm, from those which do 

 not ; a knowledge which we only arrive at when we have parted 

 down the chaff. A flock, numbering about fifty, embracing both male 

 and female birds, appeared to make the field which I examined on the 

 16th of June their constant resort, for a period of three weeks or more, 

 where they could be seen busily occupied almost constantly every 

 day. The number of worms consumed by them during this time must 

 have been immense ; and I cannot but believe that this lovely bird 

 will henceforward be esteemed for its utility, as much as it has hereto- 

 fore been for its beauty. 



I have as yet found but one insect parasite, which I am well assured 

 subsists upon and destroys the worm of the wheat-fly. It is a hyme- 

 nopter of the family ChalcididcB ; but my acquaintance with the de- 

 tails of its history is as yet too limited to attempt an account of it. I 

 shall be much disappointed if I do not meet with still other species 

 which prey upon the wheat-fly ; and as all these parasites upon the 

 Cecidomyise are more or less closely related to each other, they can 

 probably be most advantageously presented in a separate article devo- 

 ted exclusively to that subject. 



Four or more species are known abroad, which destroy the wheat- 

 worm. One of these, it is stated in the first volume of the Edinburgh 

 Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, deposits an egg beside an egg of the 

 wheat-fly, the worm from which devours the wheat-worm soon after it 

 hatches, and thus effectually saves the wheat. The observations of 



