THE WHEAT MIDGE. 89 



kinds of grass, such as the couch grass, (Triticum repens), the 

 wild hearded oats, (Avena Festuca,) and other grasses. 



150. The eggs are deposited in the germ of the still undevel- 

 oped grain, through its chaff or sheath. 0) When the chaff is far 

 advanced, or very silicious in its nature, the insect cannot punc- 

 ture it, a fact which is important to hear in mind, and of value 

 as a guide in the selection of varieties of wheat for seed where 

 the fly abounds. The number of eggs deposited in one floret 

 rarely exceeds 10, but it often happens that several insects lay 

 their eggs in the same floret, hence from 10 to 40 larvae have 

 been counted in the same floret. 



151. "Go into an infested wheat-field in the evening, with a 

 lantern, and you will find a swarm of these flies, everywhere 

 dancing up and down along the heads of the wheat, intently en- 

 gaged in selecting the kernels, upon which to deposit their eggs. 

 They are all females. The males are very rare, and have never 

 been found, I believe, except by the German naturalist, Meigen, 

 and myself. Having discovered a kernel, the chaff of which is 

 not too old and hard, the fly alights upon it and pierces the chaff 

 with her sting or ovipositor, which is a slender tube resembling 

 a fine hair. This she protrudes from her body, insinuating it 

 through the chaff until its point reaches the germ or young soft 

 kernel. She then leisurely passes her eggs one after another 

 through this tube, thus dropping them upon the surface of the 

 germ or embryo seed. The same fly probably visits several ker- 

 nels in this manner upon successive evenings, until her whole 

 stock of eggs is disposed of, by which time she, having com- 

 pleted her labors, has become so exhausted that she is often, 

 unable to draw her ovipositor from the chaff, and thus dies. 



(1) It has been said that the eggs are deposited on the chaff scales. Perhaps both 

 localities are selected under different circumstances. As the maggot is footless it 

 would find tho great ;st ciff.culty, except when the chaff scales were moist, in enter- 

 ing inwards to the young grain or germ. 



G 



