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THE GENESEE FAEMER. 279 



WHEAT FLY, ERRONEOUSLY CALLED "WEEVIL." 



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The scientific name of ttis insect, according to Latreille, Kollar, Curtis, and Harris, 

 is Cecklomyia trltici. Like the Hessian fly [Cecidomyia destructor), tlie wheat fly or 

 midiie belongs to the order Biptera, Linn^us, (two-winged flies), ami to^ the genus 

 Tlpulidce, unlil it was divided by Latreille, there being one hundred and thirty species, 

 by forming the new genus Cecidomijia, which includes a number of flies that deposit 

 their eggs on the ears and leaves of wheat, and other cereal plants. 



Figure 2 in the plate is intended to represent the insect at its natural size, but its 

 body being only about a line in length (the 12th of an inch), the drawing is larger than 

 the fly. Figure 1 represents the female much magnified, and figure 4 the male also 

 magnified. 



Farmers seeing numerous little orange-colored worms in the heads of wheat, have 

 naturally believed them to be the ofi'spring of a weevil, and hence they speak of the 

 malady as "the worm" or "the weevil" in their grain. The proper name is "Wheat 

 fly," whose habits are unlike those of the Hessian fly. The larvaB of the wheat fly 

 undergo pupation in the ground ; those of the Hessian fly in the sheaths which sur- 

 round*\he stems of wheat at or near first and second joints above the earth, from which 

 the perfect insect emerges. The wheat fly produces but one generation in a year ; the 

 Hessian fly produces two. The larvse of the Hessian fly suck their support from the 

 juices that flow in the stems of growing plants, while those of the wheat fly gnaw and 

 eat the kernels of wheat. Hessian flies cause wheat to crinkle and fall down from the 

 weakness of the straw near the ground ; wheat flies cause the heads to ripen pre- 

 maturely, and the glumes or chaft' to open, giving yellow birds and others an opportu- 

 nity to devour the worms on the grain. The female wheat fly is armed with a long 

 retractile ovipositor, with which she penetrates the glumes and deposits her eggs, either 

 on the young seeds or in the middle of the blossom, from which, a seed is developed. 

 The larvja jump on being touched ; they have no feet, are of a citron color, wrinkled or 

 warty at the side edges ; the head terminates in a point, and the posterior end is trun- 

 cated. The pupa is slender, pointed at both ends, and of a reddish color. Figure 3 

 represents the pupa greatly magnified. 



The Rev. William Kirby, of England, was the first to give a scientific description of 

 this midge, and apply to it the term tritici, the genitive of triticum (wheat.) Dr. 

 Harris and the lamented Willis Gaylord were among the first to describe the wheat 

 fly in this country. Mr. Gaylord copied the drawings of it in a prize essay, published 

 in the Transactions of the New York State Agricultural Society for 1843, from Kollar's 

 work, as translated and illustrated by J. and M. Loudon, of London, in 1840. 



Dr. Fitch, of Salem, in this State, has studied this insect for some years, and pub- 

 lished in the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture and Science, and in the Transactions 

 of the New York State Agricultural Society for 1845, the fullest account extant of its 

 natural history. Mr. S. W. Jewett says the wheat fly first appeared in Western Ver- 

 mont in 1820 ; {N E. Farmer, Vol. 19, p. 301 ;) but it was not until the years 1828 

 and 1829 that it became so abundant as to attract the attention of the public. In 

 former years, when Maine was more of a wheat-growing State than it has been in the 

 last decade, the Maine Farmer said : "A million dollars would not pay the damage it 

 has done to the State of Maine alone." Dr. Fitch, who resides in AVashington county, 

 estimated the injury done to the wheat crops in that county in a few previous years at 

 1500,000. Indeed, the farmers in the Hudson river counties and along the Mohawk 

 were induced to abandon wheat-culture mainly to avoid the ravages of the wheat fly. 

 Ten years ago, according to Mr. Gaylord, it first appeared in Onondaga county ; it is 

 I now in the Valley of the Genesee; but with what results time alone can determine. ^ ^ 



