432 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



often very injurious to the wheat crops, when the 

 plant is in bloom it oviposits in the flower itself, and 

 its larvae are supposed to render the plants sterile by 

 devouring the pollen. Another Gall-gnat deposits its 

 eggs in the extremities of the young twigs of a species 

 of willow, and very curious dense tufts of abnormal 

 leaves subsequently spring out round the puncture 

 made by the insect, these masses bear such a striking 

 superficial resemblance to compound flowers, that 

 botanists of bye-gone days actually named the plant 

 on which they were found the " Rose willow." After 

 the periodical cutting of the copse-wood in the covers, 

 we often see among the early snoots of ash a curiously 

 deformed specimen which we strongly suspect is due 

 to a similar agency. One example in our possession 

 is spread out into a wide spatulate, concavo-convex 

 form, closely ribbed on both sides, the ribs terminating 

 in buds, and the whole surmounted by a tuft of 

 similarly flattened contorted shoots, standing out un- 

 symmetrically in all directions. Psychoda Phalcz- 

 noides, a minute midge, by which designation it is 

 popularly known, is often seen on our window panes, 

 and when examined under a lens is a very pretty 

 object. Its wings are so thickly coated along their 

 numerous nervures, and so densely fringed with fine 

 hairs, that to the unassisted eye it very much resembles 

 a tiny moth with symmetrical dark bands and other 

 markings on its upper surface, its larva is found in 

 dung. We have also met with several other species 

 of the genus less conspicuously ornamented than 

 Phalcenoides. Other members of this family are 

 RJiyphus fenestralis, the larva of which revels in cow 

 dung, and the true Crane-flies or Daddy Long legs, 

 of which Tipula oleracea and Tipida crocata are typical 

 forms. The apparent indifference with which one of 

 the latter will sometimes part with two or three of his 

 unwieldly limbs, leaving them between the finger and 

 thumb of his captor, and flying away as if unconscious 



