MAGGOTS. 409 



escaping from the vagina, I attribute the imusual length of 

 time it has existed this season, to the supply of food thus 

 gradually furnished. 



" The fly deposits its eggs with much intensity, and may 

 easily be taken when so employed. Upon one occasion, 1 

 numbered thirty-five flies on a single ear; and, after carry- 

 ing it a distance of a quarter of a mile, six of them still con- 

 tinued to deposit eggs. At another time, I placed a fly, 

 then laying, between the face and glass of my watch, where 

 it deposited several eggs, although invariably interrupted 

 by the revolution of the moment hand. 



" The eggs of the fly are generally found in clusters, 

 varying in number from two to ten, upon the inner chaff, 

 in which the furrowed side of the grain is embedded, and 

 are also occasionally to be seen in the interior parts of the 

 flower and chaff. The eggs are deposited by means of a 

 long slender tube, and fixed with a glutinous substance 

 possessed by the fly. A thread of glutinous matter fre- 

 {{uently connects a cluster of eggs with the style, where 

 the larvae seem to subsist on the pollen ; in one instance, 

 fifteen eggs were numbered on such a thread, several of 

 which were suspended on the portion extending between 

 the chaff and the style. The fly not only seems thus to 

 provide a conveyance from the larvae to the style, but also 

 food for their support. The anthers are prevented from 

 leaving the style in consequence of being gummed down by 

 the glutinous matter of the fly, and the pollen thereby 

 detained for the use of the larva3, which otherwise would, 

 in part, be carried out of the glumes by the expansion of 

 the filaments, — known to farmers by the term hloom. 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 another, and forty-seven have 

 been numbered in one. Occasionally there are found in 

 the same floret larvae and a grain, which is generally 



