52 HYMENOPTERA. 



given up in consequence thereof. It was supposed that the 

 insects producing this disease were imported from Bremen, 

 or some other port in the North of Europe, in some barley 

 that was sown in the vicinity of Newbury, three or four 

 years before 1829.* The worms or maggots were found, 

 by John M. Gourgas, Esq., of Weston, Massachusetts, to 

 be transformed to small flies, " about the make and size of 

 a small black ant,' with wings," which were thought, by 

 some persons, to be the same as the Hessian flies. 



In the summer of 1831, myriads of these flies were 

 found alive in straw beds in Gloucester; the straw having 

 been taken from the fields the year before. An opinion 

 at that time prevailed, that the troublesome humors where- 

 with many persons were then afflicted were occasioned by 

 the bites of these flies ; and it is stated that the straw beds 

 in Lexington, being found to be infested with the same 

 insects, were generally burnt. f Mr. Gourgas observes, $ 

 that when the barley is about eight or ten inches high, 

 the effects of the disease in it begin to be visible by a 

 sudden check in the growth of the plants, and the yellow 

 color of their lower leaves. If the buts of the straw are 

 now examined, they will be found to be irregularly swollen, 

 and discolored, between the second and third joints, and, 

 instead of being hollow, are rendered solid, hard, and 

 brittle, so that the stem above the diseased part is impov- 

 erished, and seldom produces any grain. Suckers, how- 

 ever, shoot out below, and afterwards yield a partial crop, 

 seldom exceeding one half the usual quantity of grain. 

 Dr. Andrew Nichols, of Danvers, states, that the worms 

 are about one tenth of an inch in length, and of a yellow 

 or straw color ; and that, in the month of November, they 

 appeared to have passed to the chrysalis state. They live 

 through the winter unchanged in the straw, many of them 

 in the stubble in the field, while others are carried away 



* New England Fanner, Vol. VHI. p. 217. { Ibid., Vol. VIII. p. 299. 



t Ibid., Vol. X. p. 11. Ibid., p. 138. 



