128 CLOVER CULTURE. 



represents a tarsal claw, andy* forms of scales. Figure 2 

 shows an enlarged view of the female, with ovipositor by 

 which it deposits its eggs, extended ; b represents the 

 head more enlarged ; <:, the tip of the ovipositor highly mag- 

 fied, and d a great enlargement of the antennal joints. In 

 figure 3 a represents the maggot or larva en- 

 larged and from the under side, while b repre- 

 sents the head drawn out and more highly magni- 

 fied. With this explanation the reader will be 

 able to determine for himself the presence of this 

 pest. 



There are two distinct insects that pass under 

 the common name of clover midge. The one r 

 the clover-seed midge, {Cecidomyia JLe&"umiiiicola r 

 Lint.), the other the clover-leaf midge, {Cccidomyia 

 trifolii, Leow), which lives in the folded leaves of 

 white clover and sometimes of the red. The 

 first, which is now under discussion, affects only 

 the seed, and seems first to have been observed in 

 America by Prof . J. A. Lintner, in 1877. The 

 larva was described briefly in 1878 in a report on 

 B LARVA. some o f the injurious insects of the year, to the 

 New York State Agricultural Society. Prof. Riley, of the 

 Department of Agriculture, observed it in 1878 and described it 

 in the annual report for the Department of Agriculture for 

 that year. It was observed by Prof. Forbes in Illinois in 

 1879, and since that time has extended over almost the entire 

 clover growing region of the United States, with the excep- 

 tion, perhaps, of southern and western Iowa and the region 

 beyond the Missouri. The eggs of the midge are so small 

 that it is almost impossible to see them without very good 

 eyes, their average length being .01 of an inch. They are 

 described by Prof. Rilev as being u long, oval in shape, their 

 length three times their breadth and one end slightly larger 

 than the other. Their general color is pale yellow and an 

 orange streak is more or less apparent according to the age 

 of the embryo." The female simply pushes the eggs down 

 between ;he hairs which surround the seed capsule of the 

 floret or minute flowers of which the clover head is composed, 

 isrhich stage of development occurs in central Iowa in the lat- 

 ter part of May. In other words, the egg is deposited before 

 the bloom appears, but after the head is formed. By the 

 time the larvae are hatched, the mouth of the floret is open, 

 and the maggots or larvae work their way throgh the mouth 

 of the flower down to the seed. 



The larvae or maggots hatched from the egg seew. to 



