No. 105.] 279 



themselves instantly on the ground, and it is a slow and tedious task 

 for them to get up to the heads of the grain again. A similar pro- 

 cess, but with a different apparatus, I contemplate employing against 

 the wheat-fly. This apparatus is a light net made of gauze, three 

 or four feet deep and one or two rods long ; its mouth reaching the 

 entire length of the net, and opening to a width of about eighteen 

 inches. A small rope is to be stitched to the upper and another to 

 the lower side of the mouth, reaching slightly beyond the net at each 

 end, which is to be carried by two persons holding the ends of these 

 Topes. If on closely examining the wheat-fields of my vicinity, from 

 the time that the heads begin to protrude from their sheaths, the fly 

 is found to be gathering in swarms in any one of them, I intend re- 

 pairing to that field in the evening, when the insects will be hovering 

 in such myriads about the heads of the grain, and, with an assistant, 

 carrying the net so that the lower cord will strike a few inches below 

 the heads of grain, the upper one being heldnearly a foot in advance 

 of it, and about the same distance above the tops of the heads, by 

 keeping the cords tense and walking at a uniformly rapid pace from 

 side to side of the field, until the whole is swept over, I shall be 

 much disappointed if countless millions are not gathered into the 

 net, which is to be instantly closed whenever a pause is made, by 

 bringing the cords together. It is now to be folded or rolled together 

 into a smaller compass, and then pressed by the hands or otherwise 

 so as to crush the vermin contained within it. This measure has 

 been suggested to me, by observing the perfect facility with which 

 the small entomological fly-net becomes filled with these flies, on 

 sweeping it to and fro a few times among the heads of infested 

 wheat in the evening. Of course this operation should be resorted 

 to on the first appearance of the fly in numbers, and before its eggs 

 have been deposited so profusely as will occur in the course'of a 

 few days. I feel strongly confident, that by sweeping over a field 

 a very few times in the manner above described, the fly may be so 

 completely thinned out and destroyed, as to be incapable of injuring 

 the crop perceptibly. 



With regard to destroying the fly in the earlier stages of its exis- 

 tence, only a few words will require to be said. Whoever has read 

 the preceding account of the habits of this insect, must have been 

 struck with a consciousness of the perfect facility with which that 



