456 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 



before the grain is ripe; for many persons have witnessed and 

 testified to this fact. In the New England States, winter 

 wheat, as it is called, is usually sown about the first of Sep- 

 tember. Towards the end of this month, and in October, 

 when the grain has sprouted, and begins to show a leaf or 

 two, the flies appear in the fields, and, having paired, begin to 

 lay their eggs, in which business they are occupied for several 

 weeks. The following Interesting account of the manner in 

 which this is done was written by Mr. Edward Tilghman, of 

 Queen Ann county, Maryland, and was published in the eighth 

 volume of "The Cultivator," in May, 1841. "By the second 

 week of October, the first sown wheat being well up, and 

 having generally put forth its second and third blades, I re- 

 sorted to my field in a fine warm forenoon, to endeavor to 

 satisfy myself, by ocular demonstration, whether the fly did 

 deposit the egg on the blades of the growing plant. Selecting 

 a favorable spot to make my observation, I placed myself in a 

 reclining position in a furrow, and had been on the watch but 

 a minute or two, before I discovered a number of small black 

 flies alighting and sitting on the wheat plants around me, and 

 presently one settled on the ridged surface of a blade of a 

 plant completely within my reach and distinct observation. 

 She immediately began depositing her eggs in the longitudinal 

 cavity between the little ridges of the blade. I could distinctly 

 see the eggs ejected from a kind of tube or sting. After she 

 had deposited eight or ten eggs, I easily caught her upon the 

 blade, and wrapped her up in a piece of paper. I then pro- 

 ceeded to take up the plant, with as much as I conveniently 

 could of the circumjacent earth, and wrapped it all securely 

 in a piece of paper. After that I continued my observations 

 on the flies, caught several similarly occupied, and could see 

 the eggs uniformly placed in the longitudinal cavities of the 

 blades of the wheat; their appearance being that of minute 

 reddish specks. My own mind being thus completely and 

 fully satisfied as to the mode in which the egg was deposited, 

 I proceeded directly to my dwelling, and put the plant with 

 the eggs upon it in a large glass tumbler, adding a little water 

 to the earth, and secured the vessel by covering it with paper, 



