224 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



also noticed in Hind's Insects and Diseases Injurious io ilie Wheat 

 Crops [of Canada], Toronto, 1857, but the description is evidently 

 borrowed from Dr. Fitch, and there is no evidence of its having been 

 identified among the Canadian insects. The literature of the species, 

 so far as we can discover, is limited to the above. 



Its Occurrence in Missouri in 1867. 



Professor Riley noticed its operations about the middle of June, 1867, 

 in all the wheat fields examined by him between St. Louis and seventy 

 miles westward to Bhiffton, on the Missouri river. From one to four 

 per cent of the heads of wheat in these fields had turned yellow and 

 apparently prematurely ripened, and on close inspection were found to 

 be stunted and shorter than the rest, and with their kernels withered 

 and shrunken. The last or ear-bearing joint could be easily drawn out 

 of its sheath in a yellow and dried condition, with its lower end ir- 

 regularly gnawed. The larvae causing the injury were discovered very 

 near the joint (within one-fourth of an inch). Specimens of the in- 

 fested stalks were collected, within which the pupal state was soon as- 

 sumed, and perfect insects emerged during the first week in July, after 

 a puliation of from twelve to fourteen days. 



Its Operations not Noticed for Several Years. 



From the above notice to the present, we have-no positive informa- 

 tion of its depredations, but there is every reason to believe that they 

 have been meanwhile continued, while inexcusably attributed to other 

 of the well-known wheat insects, as the joint-worm, Hessian fly and 

 the wheat-midge, by those who should have made themselves ac- 

 quainted, with the very different modes of operation from which their 

 injuries result. It is somewhat singular tliat investigations were not 

 continued upon an insect of so great economic importance, and that 

 there has not yet been given to us its complete history, commencing 

 with the deposit of the Qgg. 



The occurrence of this insect, in Medina county, Ohio, seems to be 

 indicated by an inquiry made by a correspondent of the Coimtry Gen- 

 tleman (issue of July 27, 1870), from Hinckley, 0., for information of 

 the insect which is injuring his spring wheat — a small white worm 

 above the joint neai'est the head, causing the head to die before it fills. 



Similar Grain-flies in Europe. 

 In Europe several of the species of Oscinis and Chlorops, which are 

 closely fllied to the Meromyza, are known to be injurious to wheat, 

 rye, and barley, and one of them, the Oscinis vastator Curtis, is re- 

 ported as having the same habit with our M. Americana, the larva 



