DIPLOSIS PYRIVORA, THE PEAR-GNAT. 125 



Special attention was directed to the subject in America a few 

 years ago, by the fly having committed great ravages in one 

 Hmited region near Meriden, Con., in a great fruit-farm 

 belonging to Messrs. Coe Bros. In the spring of 188 L these 

 gentlemen wrote to the State Department of Agriculture about 

 it, but no attention seems to have been paid to the matter before 

 June, 1884, when it was taken up. The young pears seem to 

 have been affected there, in exactly the same manner as those 

 blighted by the midge in Europe ; and until this fly was found 

 upon the Coe farm no insect of similar habits had been known in 

 America, so Dr. Riley suspected that it had been brought into 

 the country, and was not indigenous. This theory was supported 

 by the fact that Mr. Coe had imported a large lot of pear-stocks 

 from France seven years before, upon which American pears 

 were grafted. Finding from Professor Mik, of Vienna, that the 

 nature of the European pear-midge was doubtful, and the C. nigra 

 of Meigen practically a lost species, being now unknown in 

 collections ; Dr. Riley carefully reared a number of specimens of 

 the little fly of both sexes from the larvae in pears, and minutely 

 described and figured them ; publishing his descriptions and 

 figures in the American ' Report of tlie Entomologist,' published 

 by the State at Washington in 1886. He found that the insect 

 belonged to the genus Diplosis, Lw., and suggested that it should 

 be called D. pyrivora, giving the names of C. nigra, Meig., and 

 C. pyricola, Nordl., as doubtful synonyms. I have great pleasure 

 in adopting Dr. Riley's suggestion, and have placed his name at 

 the head of my paper. 



The pear-midge has only attracted the notice of naturalists 

 or fruit-growers in England during the last few years, probably 

 because it has not hitherto caused much loss to the general 

 cultivators of pears. I have not heard that it has been found in 

 those counties where perry is made, or in other districts where 

 pears are grown in large numbers for the London market, as in 

 some parts of Kent. From some facts, which I shall presently 

 mention, I am inclined to think that the pest may have been 

 imported into this country, as well as into the United States, 

 from the Continent. 



Miss Ormerod, so well known for her researches and ob- 

 servations respecting insects injurious to farmers and gardeners, 

 published an interesting article upon the pear-midge in her 



