440 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 



■the Lalin for barley), in the "New England Farmer," for July 

 23, 1830,* and in the first edition of this work. It was then 

 my belief that the true culprits, or original cause of the disease, 

 would prove to be some species of Cecidomyia, allied to but 

 distinct from the Hessian fly; and that they, while in the larva 

 or pupa state, had been preyed upon and destroyed by the 

 Eurytoma. The larvas of the Hessian fly are often destroyed 

 by a somewhat similar Chalcidian parasite, great numbers of 

 which have been observed, in their winged form, in wheat- 

 fields, and have then been mistaken for Hessian flies. The 

 body of the Eurytoma Hortlei is jet black, and slightly hairy. 

 The head and thorax are opaque, and rough with dilated 

 punctures. The hind body is smooth and polished. The 

 thighs, shanks, and claw-joints are blackish; the knees, and 

 the other joints of the feet are pale honey-yellow. The females 

 are twelve or thirteen hundreths of an inch long. The males 

 are rather smaller, and are distinguished from the females by 

 the following characters. They have no piercer. The joints 

 of their antennae are longer, and are surrounded with whorls 

 of little hairs. The hind body is shorter, less pointed behind, 

 and is connected with the thorax by a longer stem or peduncle. 

 These insects are very active, and move by little leaps; but 

 the hindmost thighs are not thickened. About eight years 

 ago, some of these insects, that had come from a straw bed in 

 Cambridge, were shewn to me. They had proved very trouble- 

 some to children sleeping on the bed; their bites or stings 

 being followed by considerable inflammation and in-itation, 

 which lasted several days. So numerous were the insects 

 that it was found necessary to empty the bed-tick and burn 

 the straw. Since that time, I have heard nothing more either 

 of the insects or of the disease of barley-straw in this part of 

 the country. 



My attention was again called to the history of the barley- 

 straw insect by an article on the joint-worm, published at 

 Albany in " The Cultivator," for October, 1851. The account 

 given in this magazine, by Mr. Rives, of the ravages of the 



* Vol. IX., p. 2. 



