42 



history worked out only to learn that the species can not be deter- 

 mined, and the information thus gained is thus rendered practically 

 worthless because of not being- able to state definitely which of the 

 many forms one has been .studying. Only recently I have learned 

 the name of a species reared from grass stems eighteen years ago. 

 For this reason even now the earlier stages of nearly all of those reared 

 from growing grain are obscure or unknown, the flies having simply 

 been reared from grain or grass, but the young of any particular 

 species can not be separated from those of perhaps a half dozen other 

 similar flics. There is much need at present of careful studies of 

 these insects with a view of determining their exact relation to agri- 

 culture, and especially to what extent they may be combated outside 

 the grain flelds of the farmer. At present not more than one farmer 

 out of a thousand knows of their existence, and the injury they do is 

 attributed to the Hessian fly, thus to a certain degree throwing 

 obscurity over ali reports of the ravages of the latter insect, which 

 can not be reached outside the grain tield, while some at least of these 

 other flies surely can. When I began to study the life history of the 

 lesser wheat- stem maggot, in 1884, it was the most unsatisfactory 

 and, at that time, to all appearances, the most unprotita])le piece of 

 work that I ever undertook, for the reason that it was impossible to 

 separate it from other similar species; but this has now been largely 

 overcome with this insect, and we know that much can 1)0 done to 

 prevent its injuries. 



EARLY REPORTS OF INJURIES TO GRAIN. 



One of the earliest reports of injuries to grain in this country that 

 can be attributed to these insects with an}'^ degree of certainty was 

 cited by A. S. Fuller, from the works of M. Du Hamel du Menceau 

 (New Hamburg edition of 1759), as follows: 



There is a sinaller kind of worm which gets into the roots, chiefly oats, and work- 

 ing upward destroys all the inside of the j^lant, which perishes soon after. I sus- 

 pect it to have been an insect of this kind that destroyed so much wheat in the 

 neighborhood of Geneva, and which M. de Chateauvieux described thus: "Our 

 wheat in the month of May, 1755, sustained a loss which even that cultivated accord- 

 ing to the new liusbaudry did not escape. We found in it many little white worms, 

 which afterwards became a chestnut color. They post themselves between tlie 

 blades and eat the stems. They are usually found between the first joint and the 

 roots. Every stalk which they attacked grew no more, but became yellow' and 

 withered. The same misfortune happened to us in the year 1732. These insects 

 appeared about the middle of May and made such havoc that the crop was almost 

 destroyed. ' ' 



The attack on oats was clearly that of the stalk borer or heart worm, 

 the caterpillar of the moth Papaipema ( Gortyna) nitela Guen. , but 

 that in the wheat does not accord with the work of any other than of 

 some of these small grain and grass flies under consideration. Mero- 



