TURNIP-SEED WEEVIL, AND GNAT MIDGE: 127 
again lay eggs on the pods to be found at the upper part of stems of 
Rape or other cruciferous plants.”’ 
Another point which is especially noticeable in the habits of these 
Cecid maggots is the great numbers in which they live together in the 
infested pods. They have been recorded by continental observers to 
live up to as many as from forty to sixty in one pod, and in the 
observations sent me in 1896 by Mr. W. Sim, of Gourdas, Fyvie, 
Aberdeenshire, he found as many as thirty. 
For many years I have been in receipt of pods more or less dis- 
torted, and showing premature yellowing and splitting open; but it 
was not until 1896 and 1897 that I was able to thoroughly observe the 
complete difference in the method of attack of the two kinds of maggots 
under consideration to the seed itself. 
In October, 1896, Mr. W. Sim, writing to me as above from 
Gourdas, in Aberdeenshire, forwarded me specimens and careful notes 
of the attack of the larvee of a Cecid to Turnip seed in the pod, which 
agreed so thoroughly in all respects with that of the Cecidomyia 
brassice of Winnertz, that it appeared to be obviously of that species.* 
The imagines, that is, the developed Gnat Midges, being, however, 
dried and somewhat injured, Mr. W. Sim, on the repetition of the 
attack in July of the past season, sent me again a large supply of in- 
fested pods, in the hope that I might rear the Gnat Midge. I was 
unfortunately unsuccessful in this matter, but the pods sent me were 
so greatly infested not only by Gnat Midge maggots, but also by those 
of the Turnip-seed Weevil, that I was able to compare the method of 
working, and to secure a few observations of the manner in which the 
latter destroys the seed by straightforward consumption of the con- 
tents, which, though alluded to in some degree by entomological 
writers, is not, so far as I am aware, well known practically. 
It was on July 5th, 1897, that Mr. Sim wrote me as follows :— 
‘The insect-pest which was so destructive to my Turnip-seed crop 
last year, and which you described and named for me Cecidomyia 
brassice, threatens to be even more serious this year’’; and on examina- 
tion I found great numbers of Cecid maggots present, some of which 
were then leaving the pods. 
But on further examination a day or two after, I found that besides 
the Gnat Midge maggots there were also a number of Turnip-seed 
Weevil maggots present, which were busily at work destroying the 
seeds. One (apparently full-grown) was working with its brown head 
inside a seed which it had cleared out, whilst a collection of wet green 
rejectamenta lying at the caudal extremity showed that the work of 
destruction was then going on. In another pod I found a much 
younger weevil grub which had recently begun to attack a seed, and 
* See my ‘ Twentieth Report on Injurious Insects,’ pp. 148-162. 
