DIPTERA. 473 



where wheat had been raised the year before. The inerease 

 of these flies is somewhat checked by the attacks of three 

 diflerent parasites, which have been described by Mr. Kirby. 

 An excellent summary of the history of this insect, illustrated 

 with figures, was published by Mr. Curtis, in the year 1845, in 

 the sixth volume of the "Journal of the Royal Agricultural 

 Society of England." 



An insect, resembling the foregoing in its destructive habits, 

 and known, in its maggot form, by the name of "the grain- 

 worm," and "the weevil," has been observed, for several years, 

 in the northern and eastern parts of the United States, and in 

 Canada. It seems by some to have been mistaken for the 

 grain-weevil, the Angoumois grain-moth, and the Hessian fly; 

 and its history has been so confounded with that of another 

 insect, also called the grain-worm, in some parts of the coun- 

 try, that it is difficult to ascertain the amount of injury done 

 by either of them alone. The wheat-fly is said to have been 

 first seen in America about the year 1828,* in the northern 

 part of Vermont, and on the borders of Lower Canada. From 

 these places its ravages have gradually extended, in various 

 directions, from year to year. A considerable part of Upper 

 Canada, of New York, New Hampshire, and of Massachu- 

 setts, have been visited by it; and, in 1834, it appeared in 

 Maine, which it has traversed, in an easterly course, at the 

 rate of twenty or thirty miles a year. The country, over 

 which it has spread, has continued to suffer more or less from 

 its alarming depredations, the loss by which has been found 

 to vary from about one tenth part to nearly the whole of the 

 annual crop of wheat; nor has the insect entirely disappeared 

 in any place, till it has been starved out by a change of agri- 

 culture, or by the substitution of late-sown spring wheat for 

 the other varieties of grain. Many communications on this 

 destructive insect have appeared in " The Genesee Farmer," 



* Judge Bud's Report in "The Cultivator," Vol. VI., p. 26; and "New 

 England Farmer," Vol. IX., p. 42. Mr. Jewett says, that its first appearance in 

 western Vermont occurred in 1820. See "New England Farmer," Vol. XIX. 

 p. 301. 



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