THE 



GARDENERS MAGAZINE, 



JULY, 1837. 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



Art. I. A Series of Articles on the Insects most injurious to Culti- 

 vators. By J. O. Westwood, F.L.S., Secretary to the Entomo- 

 logical Society of London. 



No. 5. Wheat Flies. 



" Bread is the staff of life." The history of several minute 

 creatures, which are destructive to the plants from which it is 

 produced, chiefly during the period of their growth, will not be 

 deemed less interesting than that of insects which infest other, 

 less important, articles of cultivation. 



About the middle of last April, I received from my friend W. 

 Raddon, Esq., the celebrated engraver, several specimens of a 

 little dipterous insect, in the winged state, which had been found 

 in great profusion amongst the wheat, whilst removing it from 

 the rick in which it had stood through the winter. These flies 

 were in company with alepidopterous caterpillar, which was also 

 in great numbers; and the grains of wheat had been much eaten : 

 it was, however, impossible to settle the amount of damage done 

 by each of these tribes of insects. But the fact of these flies 

 being found, in the early spring months, amongst the wheat in 

 the rick, is, as we shall see in the sequel, an important point 

 gained with respect to what had been already known respecting 

 the habits of these flies. 



Order, Diptera Linnceiis. (Two-winged flies.} 



Family, ikfuscidae Leach. (Corresponding nearly with the Linnsean genus 



-Musca.) 

 Genus, Chlorops. (A name imposed by Meigen, from the Greek words 



chldros, green, and ops, an eye ; because some of the species, when aUve, 



have green eyes.) 

 Species, Chlorops glabra Meigen, Macquart Hist. Nat., Dipt., vol. ii. p. 595. 



Fig. 101. a., the insect much magnified j the cross lines beneath indicating 



the natural size. 



Head golden yellow, shining ; face paler ; antennae yellow ; seta 

 brown?; eyes dark brown; a large triangular black patch between 

 the eyes, in the middle of which the ocelli are placed ; hind part 

 Vol. XIII.— No. 88. u 



