INJURIOUS INSECTS. 255 



Is there, then, no mode by which the flowering grain can be 

 shielded from the ravages of the fly ? This is a subject on which I 

 have bestowed much thought ; and I am not now prepared to tell 

 the reader what he must do, but I will briefly inform him what I 

 shall do, upon the first occasion that calls for it. A method is some- 

 times resorted to abroad, for saving grain fields from the depreda- 

 tions of certain insects of peculiar habits. A rope is drawn along 

 over the grain, by two men walking at a brisk pace ; which rope 

 thus knocking against the heads of the grain, causes the depreda- 

 tors to drop themselves instantly to the ground, and it is a slow and 

 tedious task for them to get up to the heads of the grain again. A 

 similar process, but with a different apparatus, I contemplate em- 

 ploying against the wheat-fly. This apparatus is a light net made 

 of gauze, three or four feet deep and one or two rods long ; its mouth 

 reaching the entire length of the net, and opening to a width of 

 about eighteen Indies. A small rope is to be stitched to the upper 

 and another to the lower side of the mouth, reaching slightly beyond 

 the net at each end, which is to be carried by two persons holding 

 the ends of these ropes. If on closely examining ihe wheat-fields of 

 my vicinity, from the time that the heads begin to protrude from 

 their sheaths, the fly is found to be gathering in swarms in any one 

 of them, I intend repairing to that field in the evening, when the 

 insects will be hovering in such myriads about the heads of the 

 grain, and, with an assistant, carrying the net so that the lower cord 

 will strike a few inches below the heads of the grain, the upper one 

 being held nearly a foot in advance of it, and about the same dis- 

 tance above the tops of the heads, by keeping the cords tense and 

 walking at a uniformly rapid pace from side to side of the field, 

 until the whole is swept over, I shall be much disappointed if 

 countless miliums are not gathered into the net, which is to be 

 instantly closed whenever a pause is made, by bringing the cords 

 together. It is now to be folded or rolled together into a smaller 

 compass, and then pressed by the hands or otherwise so as to crush 

 the vermin contained within it. This measure has been suggested 

 to me, by observing the perfect facility with which the small ento- 

 mological fly-net becomes filled with these flies, on sweeping it to 

 and fro a few times among the heads of infested wheat in the 

 evening. Of course this operation should be resorted to on the first 

 appearance of the fly in numbers, and before its eggs have been 



