212 INSECT PESTS OF FARM, GARDEN AND ORCHARD 



numbers, the only thing to do is to cut and cure it as soon as pos- 

 sible, before serious damage has been done. The drying of the 

 clover will kill most of the aphides or cause them to migrate. 

 Spring pasturing or clipping might result in destroying a sufficient 

 number of the aphides so that no serious damage would result 

 later. 



The Clover-seed Midge * 



The Clover-seed Midge seems to occur wherever red and white 

 clover is grown in this country, and is a pest which must be taken 

 into consideration in raising see'd, for frequently it is not recognized 

 as the cause of the failure of the seed crop. Alsike clover, and 

 probably mammoth clover, is practically uninjured, as it flowers 

 enough later to escape attack, nor is alfalfa infested. 



Life History. The parent of all this trouble is a small midge, 

 one-twelfth inch long, with black head and thorax and 

 reddish abdomen, so small, indeed, that it will rarely be noticed. 

 The antennae have sixteen or seventeen segments, and the wings 

 have but few veins, as shown in Fig. 152. The female bears a 

 slender retractile ovipositor which when extended from the tip 

 of the abdomen is fully as long as the body, while the tip of the 

 abdomen of the male is furnished with clasping organs. The 

 midges appear in late spring just as the clover commences to 

 head. The eggs are laid among the hairy spines of the clover 

 head or beneath the bracts around it, are yellowish to orange 

 in color, of an oval shape, and about yfo inch long. Upon 

 hatching the maggot works its way into the open end of a floret, 

 where it sucks the forming seed, and prevents the petals of the 

 floret from expanding, so that although some of the flowers in 

 the head will bloom, the field as a whole does not blossom as 

 usual. The maggot is footless, white to orange-red in color, 

 and about one-tenth inch long when full grown. Upon becom- 

 ing grown in late June and the first week of July the maggots 

 enter the soil and just below the surface make tough, oval, silken 

 cocoons, in which they pupate. The pupal stage lasts about 

 * Dasyneura leguminicola Lintner. Family Cecidomyidtz. 



