286 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 5 



OBSERVATIONS ON THE IDENTITY OF THE WHEAT MIDGE 



By E. P. Felt, Albany, N. Y. 



The wheat midge, Cecidomyia or Diplosis tritici of authors has 

 been the subject of numerous economic accounts dealing with a very 

 serious pest of wheat in America during the early half of the 19th 

 century. One of the most detailed and exact of these comprises 

 some 90 pages of the 6th report of Dr. Asa Fitch, then entomologist 

 of the New York State Agricultural Society. This insect occupied 

 such a prominent place in the earlier days that a desire to ascertain 

 its identity at the present time should not lead to censure. The 

 descriptions plainly indicate that the pest is a Diplosid. Unfortu- 

 nately, other characters given, aside from biological data, are so 

 general that they may be applied to many species and are therefore 

 of little diagnostic value. The ultimate solution of the problem is 

 not rendered easier by the destruction of Kirby's types, see Trans. 

 Linn. Soc. 4:232. This insect has been referred by recent authors 

 to the genus Contarinia and has been characterized as having an 

 ovipositor twice the length of the body, a development which pre- 

 vents our referring thereto any American form known to the writer 

 as having been reared from wheat heads. The similarity of appear- 

 ance among gall midges, even with those not closely allied, and the 

 impossibility of construing too literally the descriptions of earlier 

 writers complicate the situation greatly. 



No question need arise in this connection as to the identity of the 

 Hessian fly, Phytophaga destructor Say or Cecidomyia cerealis Rond., 

 much better known in this country as Cecidomyia or Mayetiola de- 

 structor Say. No American species can be referred to Contarinia 

 tritici Kirby, as stated above, and the same is true of the European 

 Diplosis equestris Wagner, referable to either Clinodiplosis or Par- 

 alellodiplosis, the reddish larvae of which produce an oval gall on 

 wheat leaves. Two other European cereal midges should be men- 

 tioned, namely, Lasioptera: cerealis Lind. which attacks the stems of 

 rye, and Epidosis cerealis Sauter recorded as living in the larval stage 

 on the leaves of barley. 



Referring to species reared earlier, either in the New York State 

 collections or loaned by the United States National Museum, we 

 find an interesting condition. One species reared in this State is 

 probably Thecodiplosis mosellana Gehin, while specimens preserved 

 by Dr. Fitch and labeled in his handwriting as the wheat midge are 

 described below as Prodiplosis fitchii. A third species, characterized 

 as Itonida tritici, was what we had supposed up till recently to be 



