RAVAGES OF MAGGOTS. 259 



furnish the larvse with food in the first instance,^ they 

 soon crowd around the lower part of the germen, and 

 there, in all probability, subsist on the matter destined 

 to have formed the grain,"* 



Another intelhgent observer, Mr. Gorrie, of Annat 

 Gardens, Perthshire, found that by the first of August 

 all the maggots leave the ears, and go into the ground 

 about the depth of half an inch, where it is probable 

 they pass the winter in the pupa state.f 



Transforniations of the wheat-fly. a, the female fly magnified ; 

 h, larvas, natural size,feeding ; c, one magnified. 



' It is interesting to learn that this destructive in- 

 sect is providentially prevented from multiplying so 

 numerously as it might otherwise do, by at least two 

 species of ichneumons, which deposit their eggs in the 

 larvae. One of these (Encyrtus inserens, Latr.) is 

 very small, black, and shining. The other (Plafy- 

 gaster Tipulce, Latr.) is also black, with red feet and 

 a blunt tail. These have been frequently mistaken 

 for the wheat-fly ; but as it has only tivo wings, while 

 they have four, the distinction is obvious. In order 

 to observe the proceedings of the ichneumons, Kirby 

 placed a number of the larvae of the wheat-fly on a 

 sheet of white paper, and set a female ichneumon in 

 the midst of them. She soon pounced vipon her vic- 

 tim, and intensely vibrating her antennae, and bending 

 herself obliquely, plunged her ovipositor into the body 



* Loudon's Mag. of Nat. Hist., Nov. 1829, p. 450. 

 t Ibid. September, 1829, p. 324. 



