15 
of an oblong-oval form ( Plate 5, fig. b), being broadest in the 
middle and rounded at each end: it is slightly depressed, the under 
side being considerably flattened; thus in form considerably re- 
sembling the leech when contracted. Its joints are indicated by 
slight transverse impressed lines, by which it is divided into twelve 
segments of about equal length. Sometimes a brownish cloud is 
perceptible near the middle of the body on its under side, which is 
probably caused by alimentary matter. If these worms are placed 
for some days on a plate in a dry room, the outer skin of the body 
becomes so dry and indurated that the worm is incapable of making 
the slightest motion ; but on covering them with a wetted cloth, the 
surface again in a short time becomes pliant and yielding ; and if 
pressed with a needle, the animal writhes, and sometimes turns 
itself over to escape from the annoyance. I doubt whether it ever 
moults, or casts off its skin, between its egg and its pupa state ; but 
my observations have not been sufficiently exact and prolonged, to 
speak positively upon this point. 
This is the form in which the insect passes the autumn and win- 
ter: The accounts of writers disagree as to where the worm re- 
mains during this period ; in fact few of them speak distinctly upon 
this particular point. Mr. Kirby, however, describes the worm as 
still continuing in the heads of the wheat; but as a considerable 
portion of them are missing, he thinks these have been destroyed 
by parasitic enemies. He says, “I have seen more than once, seven 
or eight florets in an ear inhabited by the (active) larve, and as 
many as thirty in a single floret, seldom less than eight or nine, and 
yet I have scarcely found more than one pupa (dormant larva) in an 
ear, and had to examine several to meet with that.” Mr. Gorrie, on 
the other hand, asserts that the maggots quit the ears of the wheat 
by the first of August, and enter into the ground, where they re- 
main through the winter. Mr. Shirreff, also, from finding the fly much 
more abundant in fields where wheat had been grown the preceding 
year than it was in other fields, entertains the same opinion. Now 
the truth is, Mr. Kirby and Mr. Gorrie are both right. A portion of 
the larve leave the grain before it is harvested, and descend to the 
ground, where I have found them, under mouldy fragments of straw 
on the surface, or buried a half inch or less within the soil. I thus 
found them, common in the field already spoken of as examined on 
the 16th of June, a few days after the grain was harvested; and 
