33 
egg skin, crawls down the leaf, enters the sheath, and proceeds 
along the stalk, (see fig. m,) usually as far as the next joint be- 
low,” (fig. B. §§,) or, in other words, to the base of the sheath, 
which in the young autumnal wheat, is at the crown of the root 
(fig. A. §). “Here it fastens, lengthwise, (fig. n and 0,) and 
head downwards, to the tender stalk, and lives upon the sap. It 
does not gnaw the stalk, nor does it enter the central cavity there- 
of; but, as the larva increases in size, it gradually becomes em- 
bedded in the substance of the stalk. After taking its station, 
the larva moves no more, gradually loses its reddish color, and 
wrinkled appearance, becomes plump and torpid, is at first semi- 
translucent, and then more and more clouded with internal white 
spots; and when near maturity, the middle of the intestinal parts 
is of a greenish color. In five or six weeks (varying with the 
season,) the larva begins to turn brown, and soon becomes of a 
bright chestnut color, bearing some resemblance to a flax-seed,” 
&e. 
Its characters——When freshly taken from the root of the wheat 
the mature worm (fig. g.) measures about fifteen hundredths of an 
inch (0.15) in length, by about 0.06 in breadth. It shows no 
signs of life when placed upon paper and turned over with a nee- 
dle-point. It is soft, glabrous, shining, white, oval and appa- 
rently composed of but nine segments, although twelve can often 
be distinctly perceived before its growth is completed. These are 
quite slightly marked by faint transverse lines of a greenish-brown 
hue. Its under side is flattened, and has an ablong grass-green 
cloud or spot in the middle, placed longitudinally. No regular 
contractions or crenatures occur along the margin to mark the 
segments, though after the worm has laid exposed to the air an 
hour, the color of the transverse lines above spoken of becomes 
bleached out as it were, and then, perhaps from the worm’s hay- 
ing become somewhat dried, faintly impressed transverse lines are 
perceptible at the junction of each of the nine segments: faint 
longitudinal strie are also discernable, as though produced by the 
pressure of the parallel veins or ribs of the sheath and culm, be- 
tween which the worm had laid. 
