7 
observations of Mr. Kirby, reaching now over half a century,-could 
probably shed some light upon this most interesting topic. 
As respects the extent of its range abroad, it has been noticed in 
most of the southern and eastern counties of England, from Corn- 
wal to Norfolk, and also in Shropshire ; in Perthshire and the Lo- 
thians, and probably in other districts of Scotland ; and in the north 
of Ireland. Whether it occurs upon the continent of Europe, we 
are not positively informed. It is not noticed by Macquart, either 
in his Diptera of the North of France, or his Natural History of 
Dipterous Insects (for a perusal of which I am indebted to the 
courtesy of Dr. T. W. Harris of Harvard University) ; and we can 
scarcely believe that if it existed in his district, it could have been 
overlooked by so assiduous a naturalist. M. Herpin, however (as 
we are told by Mr. Curtis), is of opinion that it is an inhabitant of 
France, and the statement which he makes strongly supports this 
opinion. He says, “I have also found in ears of corn, at the time 
of flowering, many little yellow larvee, very lively, from two to three 
millimetres long, lodged between the chaff of the grain : these larve 
nibble and destroy the generative organs of the plant, and the 
germen where they are found are sterile. These larve appear to me 
to have a very great analogy with those which have been described 
in the Linnean Transactions, under the name of Tipula tritici : it 
is probably a Cecidomyia.” M. Herpin placed several ears of dis- 
eased barley and wheat in bottles, and in these bottles a number of 
cecidomyia flies were afterwards found. M eigen—a copy of whose 
noted work upon the Diptera of Europe I regret that I have been 
unable to meet with—as I learn from Mr. Curtis’s paper, gives 
descriptions and figures of the wheat-fly. Were his specimens col- 
lected in Germany, or received from England ? 
Its pomustic HISTORY, 
It will be unnecessary to particularly specify the various notices 
of this insect, that have appeared in the different agricultural papers 
of the Northern States during the last twelve years. The more im- 
portant and valuable of these may be found in the several volumes 
of the Cultivator and of the New-England Farmer. An excellent 
summary of the history and habits of the wheat-fly, both in this 
country and abroad, is also given in Dr, Harris’s Report on the 
Insects of Massachusetts, p. 437 ~444. Mr. Gaylord’s paper on 
