g THE HESSIAN FLY IN GREAT BRITAIN. 



reared from this bountiful supply about twenty specimens of the 

 gnat, both males and females. Two of these were sent alive to 

 Dr. Meade, of Bradford, to examine, and I append below the 

 results of his careful and closely observed diagnosis. My first 

 Cecid, a male, appeared on May 29th ; the 30th yielded me two 

 females, and the imagines have continued to emerge sparingly 

 ever since, mostly every other morning. C. destructor is a great 

 lover of moisture, and I would suggest to all who seek to rear it, 

 that the glass-topped boxes should be well sprinkled with water, 

 and that Hypnum-moss should be introduced therein. We thus 

 assimilate Nature, that never errs in her ways and means, and 

 recall, it may be, the dew-clad culms and herbage of the corn-plant. 

 There are two broods in the year; the second brood, we are told, 

 appears in August or early in September. Each female would seem 

 to lay fifty eggs or more on the young winter or spring wheat. 



Peter Inchbald. 

 Fulwith Grange, Harrogate, June, 1887. 



Cecidomyia destructor. Say. The Hessian Fly. 

 This fly has been so often described that it seems almost super- 

 fluous to go over the same ground again ; but my excuse must be 

 that no complete scientific diagnosis has hitherto been published 

 in any British entomological work ; and as the gnat has found 

 its way into thig country, and may exercise great influence in the 

 agricultural world, a technical account taken from living speci- 

 mens, which will enable the fly to be recognised by entomologists, 

 may not be without its value. 



C. destructor. Say. 



Thorax niger. Abdomen carnosum, femina maculis nigris 

 quadratis disjunctis, mare confluentibus, signatum. Antennae 

 17-articulat{E, mare petiolatse, femina sessiles. Epistoma cirro 

 nigro instructo. Pedes testacei nigro-hirti. Alae nigrescentes, 

 radicibus rufis. Long. mas. 2, fern. 3 mm. 



Female. — The female being the larger, more abundant, and 

 more characteristic sex, I shall first describe it, and then mention 

 the distinctive points of the male. 



Head. Eyes, with forehead and occiput, black, the last clothed 

 with thick and strong black hairs. Epistome prominent, and fur- 

 nished with a tuft of black hairs. Palpi yellow, the four joints 



