23 
Is there, then, no mode by which the flowering grain can be 
shielded from the ravages of the fly? This is a subject on which I 
have bestowed much thought ; and I am not now prepared to tell 
the reader what he must do, but I will briefly inform him what I 
shall do, upon the first occasion that calls for it. A method is some- 
times resorted to abroad, for saving grain fields from the depreda- 
tions of certain insects of peculiar habits. A rope is drawn along 
over the grain, by two men walking at a brisk pace ; which rope 
thus knocking against the heads of the grain, causes the depreda- 
tors to drop themselves instantly to the ground, and it is a slow and 
tedious task for them to get up to the heads of the grain again. A 
similar process, but with a different apparatus, I contemplate em- 
ploying against the wheat-fly. This apparatus is a light net made 
of gauze, three or four feet deep and one or two rods long ; its mouth 
reaching the entire length of the net, and opening to a width of 
about eighteen inches. A small rope is to be stitched to the upper 
and another to the lower side of the mouth, reaching slightly beyond 
the net at each end, which is to be carried by two persons holding 
the ends of these ropes. If on closely examining the wheat-fields of 
my vicinity, from the time that the heads begin to protrude from 
their sheaths, the fly is found to be gathering in swarms in any one 
of them, I intend repairing to that field in the evening, when the 
insects will be hovering in such myriads about the heads of the 
grain, and, with an assistant, carrying the net so that the lower cord 
will strike a few inches below the heads of the grain, the upper one 
being held nearly a foot in advance of it, and about the same dis- 
tance above the tops of the heads, by keeping the cords tense and 
walking at a uniformly rapid pace from side to side of the field, 
until the whole is swept over, I shall be much disappointed if 
countless millions are not gathered into the net, which is to be 
instantly closed whenever a pause is made, by bringing the cords 
together. It is now to be folded or rolled together into a smaller 
compass, and then pressed by the hands or otherwise so as to crush 
the vermin contained within it. This measure has been suggested 
to me, by observing the perfect facility with which the small ento- 
mological fly-net becomes jil/ed with these flies, on sweeping it to 
and fro a few times among the heads of infested wheat in the 
evening. Of course this operation should be resorted to on the first 
appearance of the fly in numbers, and before its eggs have been 
oa 
