418 INSECT PBEVENTION. [ApRir-, 



noticed in their practical bearing, I think we may get a 

 clue towards some useful treatment. The wheat midge appears in 

 June, and lays its eggs in the blossoming ears of wheat, also some- 

 times in those of rye, barley, and oats, and likewise (which is a very 

 important addition), sometimes in those of twitch or couch grass, 

 triticum rcpens. Here the maggots feed, and their presence may be 

 known both by the injured grain and the ruffled state of the ears, 

 caused by the birds searching them out, and when autumn comes, the 

 ' red maggots,' as they are called, or a great part of them, are still in 

 the ripened ear. A great number are carried off with the harvested 

 crop, the further history of which we will return to presently, as it 

 gives a very useful point or two ; but in the natural course of things 

 the maggots which have fed in the ears during the summer go down 

 to the ground, or into the ground, in the autumn. We have a direct 

 observation of this in the notes published by Mr. Bethune, President 

 of the Entomological Society of Ontario, firstly in 1868, in the Canada 

 Farmer, afterwards, by direction of the Legislative Assembly, in the 

 Eeport of the Entomological Society of Ontario for 1871. He 

 mentions receiving clay from a field in which the midge-infested 

 wheat had been grown in the previous year. The date of receipt was 

 before the middle of June, and the earth then contained a large 

 number of wheat midge maggots, from which both male and female 

 wheat midges presently hatched. This is a valuable note, as thus, 

 besides what we see of stragglers on the stems and at the roots of the 

 wheat, we have the information from a perfectly competent observer 

 of the maggots being to be found in the earth of the field which was 

 infested in the previous year. The fact of a very great number being 

 carried off the field in the corn is outside any consideration of their 

 habits, for if affairs had gone on in the natural train the corn would 

 have fallen, and so would the maggots. We may get rid of those 

 that are carted from the field (and it is eminently desirable to do so) 

 by burning the dust, with the red maggots in it, which is often to be 

 seen under the thrashing machines ; but in days when thrashing was 

 more often carried on by a flail than it is now, and also where chaff 

 was customarily thrown to decay in any out-of-the-way nook, there 

 was a very useful lesson thus to be learnt about the requirement of 

 the maggot of a certain amount of damp. From those damp over- 

 hung chaff heaps there came crowds of wheat midge in the early 

 summer of the following year, but not from all heaps of chaff. It 

 was noticeable that where the chaff heaps were large, that is of a good 

 many cartloads, and in a damp overhung spot, the midges hatched 

 fairly or in great numbers, but where the heaps were small, that is of 

 single sack-fulls, which had been brought me for experiment, and 

 placed, though out of doors, yet not in an overhung place, there was 



