DIPTERA. 447 



A striking similarity between them has been noticed by a writer 

 in the "Genesee Farmer."* Stephen Sibley, Esq., informs 

 me that he observed the clover-worms, in Hopkinton, New 

 Hampshire, many years ago, suspended in such numbers by their 

 threads from a newly gathered clover mow, and from the timbers 

 of the building, as to be very troublesome and offensive to 

 persons passing through the barn. He also states, that if he 

 recollects rightly, these insects were of a brown color, and about 

 half an inch long. I am sorry to leave the history of these wheat- 

 worms unfinished ; but hope that the foregoing statements, which 

 have been carefully collected from various sources, will tend to 

 remove some of the difficulties wherewith the subject has been 

 heretofore involved. The contradictory statements and unsatis- 

 factory discussions, that have appeared in some of our papers, 

 respecting the ravages of these worms and the maggots of the 

 wheat-fly, might have been avoided, if the writers on these in- 

 sects had always been careful to give a correct and full descrip- 

 tion of the insects in question. Had this been done, a crawling 

 worm or caterpillar, of a brownish color, three eighths or half of 

 an inch in length, probably provided with legs, and capable of 

 suspending itself by a silken thread of its own spinning, would 

 never have been mistaken for a writhing maggot, of a deep yellow 

 color, only one tenth of an inch long, destitute of legs, and unable 

 to spin a thread. When the transformations of the former are 

 known, and the insect is obtained in its winged or perfected state, 

 it will undoubtedly turn out to be a very different creature from 

 the tiny, orange-colored wheat-fly. Until its transformations are 

 ascertained, it will be of little use to speculate on the means to 

 be used against its ravages. 



* " New England Farmer," Vol. XVII., p. 164. 



