INSECTS INJURIOUS TO SMALL GRAINS 145 



the tip of the abdomen being reddish and part of the legs whitish." 

 This species has been taken on wheat in Illinois, Nebraska, Dela- 

 ware, Maryland, Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. During 1886 

 and 1887 it did considerable damage by cutting off the heads, 

 sometimes, as stated by a Maryland man, cutting fully one-half of 

 them. No more recent damage has been recorded, and owing to 

 the slight injury usually done no remedies have received a prac- 

 tical test. Deep fall plowing might be of advantage by burying 

 the larvse so deeply that the adults would be unable to escape. 



The Wheat-midge * 



History. While the Hessian fly attacks the stalk of the 

 wheat-plant, another species of the same genus, known as the 

 Wheat-midge, or " Red Weevil," often does very serious damage 

 to the maturing head. It, too, is a foreigner, having first been 

 noticed -as injurious in Suffolk, England, in 1795, though probable 

 references to its depredations date back as early as 1741. " In 

 ' Ellis's Modern Husbandman ' for 1745 the attacks of the vast 

 numbers of black flies (the ichneumon parasites) are noticed 

 in the following quaint terms: ' After this we have a melancholy 

 sight, for, as soon as the wheat had done blooming, vast numbers 

 of black flies attacked the wheat-ears and blowed a little yellow 

 maggot, which ate up some of the kernels in other parts of them, 

 and which caused multitudes of ears to miss of their fulness, acting 

 in some measure like a sort of locust, till rain fell and washed them 

 off; and though this evil has happened in other summers to the 

 wheat in some degree, yet if the good providence of God had not 

 hindered it they might have ruined all the crops of wheat in the 

 nation.' (Hind's 'Essay on Insects and Diseases Injurious to 

 Wheat Crops/ page 76)". It seems probable that it was first 

 introduced into America near Quebec, where it " appears to have 

 occurred " m 1819, and was first observed in the United States 



* Diplosis tritici. Family Ceddomyidce. See Bulletin No. 5, Vol. L 2d 

 Ser., Ohio Ag. Exp. Sta., F. M. Webster. 



