122 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO STAPLE CROPS. 



INJURING THE HEAD. 



The Wheat-midge {Diplosi.^ tritici Kirby). 

 History. — While the Hessian Fly attacks the stalk of 

 the wheat-plant, another species of the same genus, known 

 as the Wheat-midge, or " Red Weevil," often does very 

 serions damage to the maturing head. It, too, is a 

 foreigner, having first been noticed as injurious in Suffolk, 

 England, in 1795, though probable references to its 

 depredations date back as. early as 1741. ''In ' Ellis^s 

 Modern Husbandman' for 1745 the attacks of the vast 

 numbers of black flies (the ichneumon j^arasites) are 

 noticed in the following quaint terms : ' After this we have 

 a melancholy sight, for, as soon as the wheat had done 

 blooming, vast numbers of black flies attacked the wheat- 

 ears and bio wed a little yellow maggot which ate up some 

 of the kernels in other parts of them, and which caused 

 multitudes of ears to miss of their fulness, acting in some 

 measure like a sort of locust, till rain fell and washed them 

 off; and though this evil has happened in other summers 

 to the wheat in some degree, yet if the good providence of 

 God had not hindered it they might have ruined all the 

 crops of wheat in the nation.^ (Hind's '' Essay on Insects 

 and Diseases Injurious to Wheat Crops,' page 76.)" * It 

 seems probable that it was first introduced into America 

 near Quebec, where it ''ajDpears to have occurred" in 

 1819, and was first observed in the United States in 

 northwestern Vermont in 1820. It did not become very 

 destructive, however, until 1828, from which time until 

 1835 it kept increasing in such numbers as to cause the 



*The Wheat-midgc. Bulletin No. 5, Vol. 1, 2d Ser., Ohio Ag. 

 Exp. Sta., F. M. Webster. 



