258 INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



one occasion, I numbered thirty-five flies on a single 

 ear; and, after, carrying it a distance of a quarter of 

 a mile, six of them still continued to deposite eggs. 

 At another time, I placed a fly, then laying, between 

 the face and glass of my watch, where it deposited 

 several eggs, although invariably interrupted by the 

 revolution of the moment hand. 



' The eggs of the fly are generally found in clus- 

 ters, varying in number from two to ten, upon the 

 inner chaff, in which the furrowed side of the grain is 

 embedded, and are also occasionally to be seen in 

 the interior parts of the flower and chaff. The eggs 

 are deposited by means of a long slender tube, and 

 fixed with a glutinous substance possessed by the fly. 

 A thread of glutinous matter frequently connects a 

 cluster of eggs with the style, where the larvae seem 

 to subsist on the pollen; in one instance, fifteen eggs 

 were numbered on such a thread, several of which 

 were suspended on the portion extending between 

 the chaff and the style. The fly not only seems thus 

 to provide a conveyance from the larvce to the style, 

 but also food for their support. The anthers are pre- 

 vented from leaving the style in consequence of being 

 gummed down by the glutinous matter of the fly, and 

 the pollen thereby detained for the use of the larvae, 

 which otherwise would, in part, be carried out of the 

 glumes by the expansion of tiie filaments, — known to 

 farmers by the term bloom. In the exertion of gum- 

 ming down the anthers, many of the flies are entan- 

 gled in the vascules of the corolla, and thus become a 

 sacrifice to their maternal affection. 



' The larvae are produced from the eggs in the 

 course of eight or ten days: they are at first perfectly 

 transparent, and assume a yellow colour a few days 

 afterwards. They travel not from one floret to an- 

 other, and forty-seven have been numbered in one. 

 Occasionally there arc found in the same floret larvaj 



