CEBUS OECIDOMYIA, 



757 



Orchis ustulata, about four inches beneath the sur- 

 face of the ground, \\hich induced him to suspect 

 that the larva might feed upon the roots of that plant. 

 The dwarf-orchis was in flower upon the spot when 

 1 met with two or three specimens ascending Arthur's 

 Seat." 



The second section (Si/phonides} has the body 

 rounded and of a soft consistence ; the jaws small 

 and not protruded ; the palpi terminated in a point, 

 and the antennae simple or but slightly toothed. In 

 many the hind-legs are fitted for leaping. These in- 

 sects, all of which are of small size, reside upon plants 

 in clamp situations. The genera are : Cyphon, Fabri- 

 cius; (Eludes, Latreille) Sci/rtcs, Latreille ; Ni/clcnx, 

 Latreille; and Eubrin, Zeigler. The two first con- 

 tain species indigenous to this country. 



CEBUS. The name sometimes given to a division 

 of American monkeys (sapctjons}, which have the 

 head round, distinct thumbs on the feet, and the tail, 

 though prehensile, wholly covered with hair. They 

 are very numerous, and the characters of the different 

 species are much more difficult of discrimination from 

 each other than those of the howling monkeys. They 

 are very mild and gentle in their mariners, and lively 

 and playful in their motions, but their cry is shrill 

 and wailing, which has procured them the appellation 

 of crying monkeys. 



The species are so confused, and they all so nearly 

 resemble each other in their manners, that the general 

 reader could find but little pleasure in the perusal of 

 such a " chapter of doubts," as any attempt at either 

 defining the group, or attempting to divide the num- 

 ber of species, would involve. We shall save much 

 room, and also give a little more interest to the few 

 words we shall have to say en the subject, if we bring 

 the whole together into one general article, MONKEY, 

 in the same manner as we did with the apes and 

 balloons, and as we purpose to do with all other 

 animals which can be brought into natural groups or 

 , that have English names. 



CECIDOMYIA (Meigen). A genus of Dipter- 

 ous insects, belonging to the family Tipulidte of Leach, 

 and to the sub-family Tipules gallicoles of Latreille. 

 It is perhaps impossible, throughout the countless 

 tribes of the insect world, to select any single genus 

 which contains so many species of minute size, which, 

 nevertheless, are endowed with such surprising powers 

 of destruction, and which is, at the same time, effected 

 in such very different modes. In this point of 

 view alone, this would be an interesting group of 

 insects, since it has been generally conceived that 

 identity of generic construction implied identity of 

 habits, but this is certainly not the case here. The 

 antenna: and legs of these insects are beautiful micros- 

 copic objects ; the former being composed, in the 

 males, of a long series of minute balls, connected 

 together by a slender thread and very pilose (this 

 structure is termed rnoniliform or necklace-shaped.) 

 In the females, the joints are longer and set nearer 

 together; the legs are long and exceedingly slender, 

 so as to be scarcely discernible when of a pale colour, 

 and the basal joint of the tarsi is very minute ; the 

 wings are hairy and furnished with only three longi- 

 tudinal nerves, and the body is slender, and termi- 

 nates, in the females, in a long and delicate tubular 

 instrument, of which we shall presently mention the 

 use. 



To this genus belongs the Hessian fly, an inhabi- 

 tant of North America, the ravages of which have 



spread terror through the agriculturists of various 

 countries in communication with that continent. 

 This insect received its name from the prevalent idea 

 that it had been imported into Long Island, in 1776, 

 with the straw carried over by the Hessian troops. 

 Messrs. Kirby and Spence thus describe the devasta- 

 tion caused by it, " The ravages of the animal just 

 alluded to, were one time so universal as to threaten, 

 wherever it appeared, the total abolition of the 

 culture of wheat, though, by recent accounts, the in- 

 jury which it now occasions is much less than at first. 

 It commences its depredations in autumn, as soon as 

 the plant begins to appear above ground, when it 

 devours the leaf and stem with equal voracity until 

 stopped by the frost. When the return of spring 

 brings a milder temperature, the fly appears again 

 and deposits its eggs in the heart of the main steins, 

 which it perforates and so weakens, that when the 

 ear begins to grow heavy and is about to go into the 

 milky state, they break down and perish. All the 

 crops, as far as it extended its flight, fell before this 

 ravager. It proceeded inland at about the rate of 

 fifteen or twenty miles annually, and by the year 

 1 78.9, had reached 2.50 miles from its original station. 

 Nothing intercepts them in their destructive career, 

 neither mountains nor the broadest rivers. They 

 were seen to cross the Delaware like a cloud. The 

 numbers of this fly were so great, that in wheat 

 harvest the houses swarmed with them, to the ex- 

 treme annoyance of the inhabitants. They filled 

 every plate or vessel that was in use, and five 

 hundred were counted in a single glass tumbler ex- 

 posed to them a few minutes with a little beer in it." 

 Vol. I. ]>. 172. So great indeed was the alarm 

 caused by this insect, that the subject was taken into 

 consideration by the Privy Council of England, and 

 caused so great a share of attention that the pro- 

 ceedings fill upwards of '200 pages. 



For a length of time this insect did not find a place 

 in the system of Entomology, and Mr. Markwick 

 caused some alarm in the public mind by the account 

 which he gave of the ravages of C'/i/ompx pumilionis, 

 (one of the flies belonging to the family Muscidse) 

 when first observed in England, and which was regard- 

 ed as identical with the Hessian fly. Mr. Marsham, 

 however, by tracing out the species, proved the alarm 

 to be unfounded. The late Mr. Say, the most cele- 

 brated of American Entomologists has, however, 

 cleared up the question by publishing a detailed 

 description of the real Hessian fly, under the name of 

 Ceddomyia dcxlruclor, in the Journal of the Academy 

 of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia for 1817. A 

 notice of this memoir, with additional observations 

 by Mr. Kirby, will be found in the Magazine of 

 Natural History, Vol. I. The female deposits from 

 one to eight or more eggs, on a single plant of wheat, 

 between the sheath of the inner leaf and the stern, 

 nearest the roots, in which situation, with its head 

 towards the root or first joint, the young larva passes 

 the winter eating into the stem and causing it to 

 break. 



If England, however, be free from the ravages of 

 the Hessian fly, another species of the same genus 

 takes its place, destroying, but in a considerably less 

 degree, the same invaluable plant. This is a minute 

 orange-coloured gnat, of which the proceedings are 

 detailed at great length in several of the early 

 volumes of the Transactions of the Linmean Society. 

 It is during the period of the blossoming of the 



