54 
begun to wither, and, secondarily, heads that are in full bloom. Some- 
times I have seen her trying in vain to thrust her ovipositor into a seed 
that had hardened. The young larva feeds upon the semifluid albumen 
of the cotyledons of the seed; as the seed hardens, the jaws of the 
larva harden also, and at length the larva has eaten out the interior of 
the seed, leaving only a thin shell. Externally, an afifected seed looks 
unhealthy. Instead of being blue, or clear yellow tinged with red or 
purple at the end, and plump, it is dull brown, often misshapen and a 
little undersized. At threshing time some of the adults have issued, 
leaving only the shells of the seeds, and these shells blow away, making 
an unaccountable shortage in the yield ; other seeds, that still contain 
the insect, may remain behind with the sound seeds, but are of course 
good for nothing. These seeds that contain the insect are not neces- 
sarily so light that they blow off with the chaff, as one writer has 
assumed; many of them, if not most of them, are heavy enough to 
stay with the sound seeds, as I have often found. The empty shells 
are swept away. From newly threshed seed the adults may continue 
to emerge in swarms, as R. H. Pettit noticed. Thus the yield of seed 
is reduced in amount, and part of the yield made valueless, by this 
insect. 
August 1 we examined 49 seeds taken at random, and found 35 
to be sound and 14 to be infested by the chalcid; of the latter, 3 were 
empty, 6 contained each a 
larva, 4 a pupa, and 1 an 
adult. Titus has found 
seed injured to the extent 
of 40 to 85 percent, with 
an average of 50 percent to 
the head. 
Without examining the 
seeds there is no way of 
telling whether the chalcid 
is present or not, for the 
rest of the plant shows no 
indication of the presence 
of the pest. 
Stages.— The adult (Fig. 
1) is a minute, compact, flylike insect, mostly black, but with parts of 
the legs yellowish brown. It is small — the female being 1.9 mm. in 
length and the male 1.7 mm. — yet its actions on a clover head are so 
characteristic that one who has made the acquaintance of the insect 
can recognize it at once. Apart from its natural surroundings, how- 
ever, one must look to certain minute details of structure in order to 
determine the species. 
In the genus Bruchophagus the marginal vein is linear and not 
longer than the stigmal vein ; the mesonotum is umbilicately punctate, 
and the abdomen ovate, pointed, and compressed in the female. The 
male resembles the female but lacks the point to the abdomen, and the 
Fig. 1. — Clover Seed-chalcid, Bruchophagus funebris; 
adult female. (Webster, Circ. 69, Bur. Ent., U. S. 
Dept. of Agriculture.) 
