438 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



that time Mr. Kirby,* Mr. Gorrie, and Mr. Shirreff,f have also 

 turned their attention to it. The investigations of these gentle- 

 men have become very interesting to us, on account of the re- 

 cent appearance, in our own country, and the extensive ravages, 

 of an insect apparently identical with the European wheat-fly. 

 The following account of the latter will serve to show how far 

 the European and American wheat-flies agree in their essential 

 characters and in their habits. | The European wheat-fly some- 

 what resembles a musquito in form, but is very small, being only 

 about one tenth of an inch long. Its body is orange-colored. 

 Its two wings are transparent, and changeable in color ; they are 

 narrow at the base, rounded at the tip, and are fringed with little 

 hairs on the edges. Its long antennae, or horns, consist, in the 

 female, of twelve little bead-like joints, each encircled with 

 minute hairs ; those of the male will probably be found to have a 

 greater number of joints. Towards the end of June, or when 

 the wheat is in blossom, these flies appear in swarms in the 

 wheat-fields during the evening, at which time they are very ac- 

 tive. The females generally lay their eggs before nine o'clock, 

 at night, thrusting them, by means of a long, retractile tube in the 

 end of their bodies, within the chaffy scales of the flowers, in 

 clusters of from two to fifteen, or more. By day they remain at 

 rest on the stems and leaves of the plants, where they are shaded 

 from the heat of the sun. They continue to appear and lay their 

 eggs throughout a period of thirty-nine days. The eggs are ob- 

 long, transparent, and of a pale buff color, and hatch in eight or 

 ten days after they are laid. The young insects, produced from 

 them, are little footless maggots, tapering towards the head, and 

 blunt at the hinder extremity, with the rings of the body some- 

 what wrinkled and bulging at the sides. They are at first per- 

 fectly transparent and colorless, but soon take a deep yellow or 

 orange color. They do not travel from one floret to another, 

 but move in a wriggling manner, and by sudden jerks of the body, 

 when disturbed. As many as forty-seven have been counted in 



• " Transactions of the Linnean Society," Vol. IV., p. 230, and Vol. V., p. 96. 

 t Coudon's " Magazine of Natural History," Vol. II., p. 323, and 448. 

 t See also my article on wheat insects in the " New England Farmer," for 

 March 31, 1841, Vol. XIX., p. 306. 



