Sec. 12.] ENTOMOLOGICAL. 247 



eggs deposilod in autumn liatcli in May or June; tlie younf worms are 

 marked with a black licad and thorax, and bright red abdomen, and black 

 sjjots on the back. They afterward appear of a grayish color, with rudi- 

 ments of wings, which at length enable them to ily with 8tren"th. It 

 approaches its ]n-ey cautiously, and makes a dart, and pierces it to death, and 

 then sucks out the substance. It eats the common tree-caterpillar voraciously 

 and it sometimes wounds a person handling it incautiously with its sharp 

 piercer. 



There arc numerous other parasites of noxious insects, and insects like 

 those named, which prey upon others, which are really beneficial to the 

 farmer, as arc many quadruped.s and other animals that are natural insect- 

 eaters, such as toads, moles, skunks, etc. The most important of all. i)erliaps, 

 we mention in the next paragraph. 



273. Tlio Wheat Midsc ParasUo.— The only hope of relief from the bla>ling 

 cfi'ects of the wheat-midge {o-2o), with those who have thought upon the sub- 

 ject, has been a parasite that would work its destruction. That hope, wc 

 trust, is about to be realized. A correspondent of the Canadian Agricul- 

 tun'ft, writing to that pajier in the autumn of ISOU, says: 



"I am rejoiced that this week I can announce the arrival of a deadly 

 enemy to the wheat midge or fly. In the neighborhood of Sparta, township 

 of Yarmoutii, the farmers have discovered some species of ichneumons which 

 deposit their eggs on the larva. One of these is very small, black, ;;m(1 

 shining ; the other is also black, with red feet aiul a blunt tail. These aio 

 ofti'ii mistaken for the wheat-fly ; but as it has only tico wings, and they 

 have ffnir, tiie distinction is obvious. To observe the proceedings of the 

 ichneumons, place a number of the maggots or larva^ of the wheat-fly on a 

 sheet of paper, and set a. female ichneumon in tlie midst of them; .slie soon 

 pounces upon her victim, and, intensely vibrating her antennaj, bending her- 

 self obliquely, jilungos lier ovipositor into the body of the larva, dejio?iting 

 in it a single egg. She will then pa.ss to the second, and so on, depositing a 

 single egg in each. Yon will observe the maggot writhing in seeming 

 agnny, when sometimes the fly stings them three times. These ichneumons 

 ap]iear in myriads on the outside of the car, but, as if impatient of blight 

 light, sheltering themselves from the sun's rays among the husks."' 



The same thing has been noticed in other sections ; and Dr. Fitch, the 

 entomologist of the New York State Agricultural Society, is so much en- 

 couraged that a remedy has come at last, that he writes conlidentiy, in 

 November of that year: "The days of the wheat-midge pest are numbered. 

 I fully believe that farmers may again bow wheat without fear of its destruc- 

 tion by the Cecidomyia iritici." 



