DIPTERA. 471 



characters and in tlicir habits.* The European wheat-fly 

 somewhat resembles a mosquito in form, but is very small, 

 being only about one tenth of an inch long. Its body is 

 orange-colored. Its two wings are transparent, and change- 

 able in color; they are narrow at the base, rounded at tiie tip, 

 and are fringed with little hairs on the edges. Its long an- 

 tennfE, or horns, consist, in the female, of twelve little bead-like 

 joints, each encircled with minute hairs; those of the male 

 will probably be found to have a greater number of joints. 

 Towards the end of June, or when the wheat is in blossom, 

 these flies appear in swarms in the wheat-fields during the 

 evening, at which time they are very active. The females 

 generally lay their eggs before nine o'clock, at night, thrusting 

 them, by means of a long, retractile tube in the end of their 

 bodies, within the chaffy scales of the flowers, in clusters of 

 from two to fifteen, or more. By day they remain at rest on 

 the stems and leaves of the plants, where they are shaded from 

 the heat of the sun. They continue to appear and lay their 

 eggs throughout a period of thirty-nine days. The eggs are 

 oblong, transparent, and of a pale buff color, and hatch in 

 eight or ten days after they are laid. The young insects, pro- 

 duced from them, are little footless maggots, tapering towards 

 the head, and blunt at the hinder extremity, with the rings of 

 the body somewhat wrinkled and bulging at the sides. They 

 are at first perfectly transparent and colorless, but soon take a 

 deep yellow or orange color. They do not travel from one 

 floret to another, but move in a wriggling manner, and by 

 sudden jerks of the body, when disturbed. As many as forty- 

 seven have been counted in a single floret. It is supposed, 

 that they live at first upon the pollen, and thereby prevent the 

 fertilization of the grain. They are soon seen, however, to 

 crowd around the low^er part of the germ, and there appear to 

 subsist on the matter destined to have formed the grain. The 

 latter, in consequence of their depredations, becomes shriveUed 

 and abortive; and, in some seasons, a considerable part of the 



* See also my article on wheat insects in the " New England Farmer," for 

 March 31, 1841, Vol. XIX., p. 306. 



