INJURIOUS INSECTS. 249 



From these facts, I infer that the worm does not crawl out of the 

 chaff and "drop" itself to the ground, as has been stated by sonne 

 writers ; but tliat having attained its growth, it lies dormant within 

 the chaff, awaiting a favorable state of the weather in which to make 

 its descent, to wit, a rain whicii is not immediately followed by a 

 clear sky and warm sun that would soon dry the straw. Hence it is 

 doubtless almost invariably by night that this journey of the worm 

 is performed, and that it has therefore never been seen. The straw 

 itself being wet, and the body of the worm rendered supple by the 

 moisture surrounding it, it leaves its abode in the head of the wheat, 

 and adhering to the wet straw by the glutinousness of the surface 

 of its body, gradually works its way downwards by the wriggling 

 motion to which it so often resorts when disturbed, until it reaches 

 the ground. That there is such a glutinous secretion upon the sur- 

 face of the worm as would enable it to adhere to the wet straw in 

 the manner supposed, I might adduce a number of facts to prove. I 

 was desirous of taking a drawing of the larvae which I found among 

 wheat-stubble last March ; but particles of earth adhered to them 

 so firmly, that I could not separate them with the point of a needle 

 without also mutilating the worms. A few weeks since, on visiting 

 a neighbor's threshing-floor, I gathered a number of larvag by mois- 

 tening the end of my finger and touching it to the worm, which, 

 thus adhering, was scraped off upon the edge of a tin box. The box 

 is now before me, with each of the worms alive, but firmly glued to 

 its sides, and many of them to each other ; and on forcibly removing 

 some of them, the outer dried and hardened case of the worm is 

 fractured in the operation. 



It would thus appear, that those worms which are matured, leave 

 the graiu at the close of a shower, and crawl down the wet straw 

 to the earth. It may be, also, that a heavy night-dew sometimes 

 furnishes a sufficient degree of moisture to enable them to do this. 

 But, on the other hand, those worms which are later in arriving at 

 maturity, in awaiting suitable weather for making the same descent, 

 are, ere such weather arrives, carried with the grain into the barn. 



As illustrating the strong tenacity of life possessed by these larvae, 

 I may in this connexion state, that the few specimens gathered in 

 March as already stated, were placed with a little earth in a vial, 

 and a piece of gauze tied over its mouth, for the purpose of ascer- 

 taining the transformations of the insect, if any, from its then condi- 



