REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGIST. eo: 
to have attracted attention more particularly during the last two years,* 
and bids fair to become as serious 2 drawback to the raising of clover 
seed as the Wheat midge has in past years been to the raising of wheat. 
The first published notice of this insect was in the different reports of 
the proceedings of the annual meeting of the New York State Agricult- 
ural Society, held at Albany in January, 1879, where Mr. J. A. Lintner, 
of the State Museum of Natural History, referred to its ravages, an 
briefly described the larva under the name of Cecidomyia trifolii.t 
The larve (Pl. VI, Fig. 3, a) affect the heads of clover In the same 
well-known manner that the Wheat midge affects wheat, and in all essen- 
tial life-habits agree, so far as I have been able to learn, with that 
species. When full grown these orange larve quit the clover heads, drop 
to the ground, and either work a short distance beneath the surface or 
hide under the dead leaves anid other shelter that may be thereon. Here 
each forms an oval, compressed, rather tough cocoon of fine silk, wit 
particles of the surrounding earth or other objects adhering to the outside 
and rendering its detection extremely difficult. Thepupa stateis assumed 
within the coccon, and when about to give forth the fly the pupa works 
itself through its silken covering and to the surface of the ground. 
The flies (Pl. V1, Figs. 1, 2) begin to issue in September, and continue 
issuing all through the mild autumn weather and during the ensuing 
‘spring. In a warm room I have had them issue all through the winter. 
None of the writers on injurious insects mention any midge of the kind 
as affecting clover in Europe, though Curtis} mentions what is evidently 
the larva of a Cecidomyia as affecting tares, the larve being concealed 
amongst the calyces and eating into and consuming the incipient pod. 
The flowers of the Bird’s-foot clover (Lotus corniculatus) are also 
“strangely transformed” there by the larva of Cecidomyia loti. 
If the injuries of this insect should become serious, the clover-seed 
raiser will be obliged to abandon for a series of years the growth of this 
crop, as in no other way are we likely to be able to affect the multiplica- 
tion of the enemy. The more thoroughly farmers combine in this course 
in any given district the more effectual will be the eradication of the evil. 
This clover midge is readily distinguished from the Hessian fly by 
being but half as large in all stages, and by the flies usually having 
fewer joints to the antenne. From the wheat midge itis also readily 
distinguished in the perfect state, as this last has twenty-four joints to 
the antennz in the male and twelve in the female. 
DESCRIPTIVE. 
CECIDOMYIA LEGUMINICOLA.—Lengih, male, 1.3" to 1.6"; female, 2.6"™ to3.6™™. Alar expanse, male 
3 to 4™™, female 3.3 to 4.7=™. Abdomen red, thorax brownish-red; antenne pedicelled and 15jointed in 
the male, sessile and 16-jointed in the female. Wings hairy; transverse veinlet feeble; palpi 4jointed ; 
ovipositos 4-jointed and as long as the body when extended. 
Eoag—Unobserved, but will doubtless prove very similar to that of tritici or of destructor, that of 
= ast being 0.5™= long, cylindrical, rounded at each end, soft, translucent, and pale orange-red in 
color. : 
*From some facts which, as I learn from Mr. Lintner, have been commnnicated to 
him by Prof. H. Brewer, of Yale College, New Haven, Conn., it is quite probable 
that this same midge was at work on the clover in Tompkins County, New York, over 
thirty years ago. 
{The description was repeated under tho same name in the Canadian Entomologist 
(vol. xi, p. 45), but finding subsequently that the specific name had previously been 
applied by Loew (Verh. Zool.—Bot. Gesell. vol. xxiv, Wien, 1874) to a species forming 
a sort of gall on the common clover in Europe, Mr. Lintner recently substituted the 
specific name leguminicola. Meanwhile I had given it the name of Lintnerii in con- 
nection with the description here published, which has been in the printer’s hands 
since last March. The delay in the publication of the report has enabled me to adopt 
Mr. Lintner’s last name. 
{farm insects, p. 487. 
