824 
broods of larve found by him was ‘in the culm near the root,” where 
they “cause an enlargement of the stem,” and Mr. Muse states that the 
larve producing his species of Tenthredo “burrow in the stems and - 
feed upon them.” Still, as long ago at least as 1843 and 1844 there was 
what, in the light of a recently published article on “Wheat and Grass 
Saw-flies,”* might have been a serious attack of Saw-fly larve on 
wheat. A correspondent, “P.C.,” Penn’s Manor, Bucks County, Pa., 
in the Cultivator,t calls attention to the ravages of a worm about an 
inch long, its head brownish green, with two brown spots, which as- 
cended the straws and cut off the heads, soon after the latter had been 
put forth. In some fields one-fifth of the heads had been eaten off, the 
Mediterranean variety being the most injured. So far as known the 
ravages had been confined to within a few miles of correspondent’s 
locality. 
A short time ago the writer reared a leaf-miner in wheat, the larva 
attacking the tip of the larger leaf, the species involved being Ela- 
chista prematurella Clem. And now, through fear of temptations, 
which might in future influence him to pose as the original discoverer 
of the first wheat leaf-miner, he proposes to put such an aspiration 
forever beyond his reach by placing again on record the following 
letter, first published in 1822:¢ 
CULPEPER COUNTY, WOODVILLE, VA., 
May 28, 1822. 
To the Editor of the American Farmer : 
DEAR SrR: Inclosed you will receive a few blades of wheat, and by examination 
you will find that a deposit of eggs has been made by the fly in a mode not hereto- 
fore mentioned by anyone. 
The germs are now in the maggot state and occupy an apparently comfortable 
position in the substance of the blade, and most generally the top blade. You will 
find them between the surfaces, which are membraneous, a fact which I never before 
observed. As they progress, feeding on the green pulp, they enlarge the cavity or 
bag and the leaf then exhibits the appearance called “fired,” which must proceed 
either from an absorption or change of the color of the pulp. Whether the season 
or some adventitious circumstance has produced this aberration, or whether its con- 
sequences will be more or less injurious to the farmer, must be left for time to dis- 
close. The injury is most prevalent in rank wheat. 
Yours respectfully, 
PHILIP THORNTON. 
Just what Mr. Thornton’s leaf-miner was we may never know, but 
it must certainly have been a leaf-miner and not, as he supposed, the 
Hessian Fly. 
Speaking of the Hessian Fly, Cecidomyia destructor, reminds me that 
the modern entomologist is liable to make a considerable number of old 
discoveries. When we figured and described the effect of the fly on 
young wheat in the fall, in 1887,§ we fully believed we were the first to 
* Insect Life, Vol. 4, pp. 168, 179. 
t The Cultivator, Albany, N. Y., N.S., Vol. 2, p. 148, 1845. 
{ American Farmer, Vol. 4,p. 183. 
§ Circular No.2, Purdue University, Agricultural Dept., Nov. 21, 1887. 
Pe bear 
