110 WHEAT MTDGE. 



author for several years past has certainly 

 found large numbers of them, and they have 

 been often brought for his inspection, by 

 farmers who have searched for them at his 

 suggestion. They are mostly accompanied by 

 an orange-coloured dust, which is merely the 

 red robin, with which the reader has been 

 made acquainted in a previous chapter. One 

 farmer imagined that these larvse were of great 

 use in feeding on this fungus. This was a 

 natural mistake for an unscientific person ; but 

 it tends nevertheless to prove to more expe- 

 rienced investigators how cautious they should 

 be not to connect things with each other, sim- 

 ply because they are coincident. The wheat 

 midge lays its eggs in the wheat, breeds in the 

 ear, and does the mischief before noticed. It 

 is therefore, according to the definition given in 

 the first chapter, a real parasite. Though in- 

 calculable damage results from its ravages, a 

 description of it will most likely be a novelty 

 to many readers who may have suffered greatly 

 from it, and who are not acquainted with what 

 has been written on the subject. 



By far the best account of this curious fly is 

 that of Mr. Curtis, in his admirable papers 

 published in the Journal of the Agricultural 



