258 



INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



larvae, which otherwise would, in part, be carried out 

 of the glumes by the expansion of the filaments, — 

 known to farmers by the term bloom. In the exertion 

 of gumming down the anthers, many of the flies are 

 entangled in the vascules of the corolla, and thus 

 become a sacrifice to their maternal affection. 



"The larvae are produced from the eggs in the 

 course of eight or ten days : they are at first perfectly 

 transparent, and assume a yellow colour a few days 

 afterwards. They travel not from one floret to an- 

 other, and forty-seven have been numbered in one. 

 Occasionally there are found in the same floret larvae 

 and a grain, which is generally shrivelled, as if de- 

 prived of nourishment ; and although the pollen may 



Germination of a grain of wheat, n, the heart of tlie grain, the 

 part devoured by the insect, h, bag of the seed, c, the root, d, 

 vessels to convey the uutvimeut for the root, e, feathers conveying 

 tlie pollen to fructify the seed. 



