A FOREIGN INVASION OF ENGLAND 291 



soft, sweet, and juicy portion of the stem just above 

 the joint that same soft, sweet, and juicy portion 

 which children love to pull out and suck, and 

 from which the grub, too, sucks the life- juice of the 

 barley-plant. Naturally, however, you can't suck 

 a plant's life-blood without injuring its growth ; so, 

 after a very short time, the enfeebled stem begins to 

 bend, as you see in No. 3, a little distance above 

 the point where the grub is devouring it. It has 

 been undermined, and its vitality sapped, so it gives 

 way at once near the source of the injury. 



How much damage this action does to the crop 

 you can best understand by a glance at the two 

 next contrasted illustrations. No. 4 represents 

 " seven well-favoured ears " of barley, unaffected 

 by Hessian fly, and with the grains richly filled out 

 as the farmer desires them ; No. 5, on the contrary, 

 shows you " seven lean ears," attacked by the fly, 

 and bent and ruined in various degrees by the 

 indirect action of the silently gnawing larva. Look 

 on this picture and on that, and you will then 

 appreciate the British farmer's horror of his in- 

 significant opponent. You will observe, by the 

 way, that I speak throughout of barley, not of 

 wheat. This is because in England, where these 

 sketches are studied, the time of wheat-sowing is 

 such that the wheat has so far escaped the pest ; 

 the female flies are all dead before the crop is 

 sprouted : whereas in America the " fall wheat " 

 comes up at the exact moment when the female 

 Hessian fly is abroad and scouring the fields in 

 search of plants on which to lay the eggs of her 



