THE AMERICAN WHEAT-FLY. 591 



different parasites, which have been described by Mr. Kirby. 

 An excellent summary of the history of this insect, illus- 

 trated with figures, was published by Mr. Curtis, in the year 

 1845, in the sixth volume of the " Journal of the Royal 

 Agricultural Society of England." 



An insect, resembling the foregoing in its destructive 

 habits, and known, in its maggot form, by the name of 

 " the grain-worm," and " the weevil," has been observed, 

 for several years, in the northern and eastern parts of the 

 United States, and in Canada. It seems by some to have 

 been mistaken for the grain-weevil, the Angoumois grain- 

 moth, and the Hessian fly ; and its history has been so 

 confounded with that of another insect, also called the 

 grain-worm, in some parts of the country, that it is diffi- 

 cult to ascertain the amount of injury done by either of 

 them alone. The wheat-fly is said to have been first seen 

 in America about the year 1828,* in the northern part of 

 Vermont, and on the borders of Lower Canada. From 

 these places its ravages have gradually extended, in vari- 

 ous directions, from year to year. A considerable part of 

 Upper Canada, of New York, New Hampshire, and of 

 Massachusetts, have been visited by it ; and, in 1834, it 

 appeared in Maine, which it has traversed, in an easterly 

 course, at the rate of twenty or thirty miles a year. The 

 country over which it has spread has continued to suffer 

 more or less from its alarming depredations, the loss by 

 which has been found to vary from about one tenth part 

 to nearly the whole of the annual crop of wheat ; nor has 

 the insect entirely disappeared in any place, till it has been 

 starved out by a change of agriculture, or by the substitu- 

 tion of late-sown spring wheat for the other varieties of 

 grain. 



Many communications on this destructive insect have 



* Jmliro r.m>]'< Report in the Cultivator, Vol. VI. p. 26; and Xev,- England 

 Farmer, Vol. IX. p. 42. Mr. Jewctt *uys that it- first appearance in Western 

 Vermont occurred in 1820. See New England Farmer, Vol. XIX. p. 301. 



