264 Forty-second Report on the State Museum. [122] 



ing wheat would make, if evenly distributed, a sufficient seeding. I 

 am afraid this self-sown wheat will prove a detriment to the crop, as 

 the Hessian-fly will lay her eggs on these early plants. 



The fly works until frosts check it. Rolling the ground or drag- 

 ging with the smoothing harrow, and then rolling, is probably as good 

 a preventive of injury from the Hessian-fly as can now [late in Sep- 

 tember] be applied. These operations both cause the wheat to stack 

 more, making a mass of small leaves rather than one or two tall ones 

 from each plant. As the fly lays her eggs in the fold of the leaf [at 

 the crown of the root], she finds less place than where the leaves are 

 unchecked in growth. Besides, many of the eggs and newly-hatched 

 worms are destroyed by crushing and contact with soil brushed 

 against them. — W. J. F., Monroe county, N. Y. {Country Gentleman for 

 October 9, 1884.) 



Some plants of winter wheat in ground, containing the flaxseeds of the 

 Hessian fly, were received from Prof. F. M. Webster, of La Fayette, 

 Ind., on April fourteenth. On April nineteenth six of the flies 

 emerged, males, and additional ones as follows: On the twentieth, four 

 5 ; on twenty-first, seven 5 and fourteen 9 5 twenty-second, not 

 observed; on twenty-third, about sixty J and Q were taken from 

 the box, some of which were dead. 



Sciara sp. ? Occurring on Wheat. 

 Examples of a small fly were received October second, from Dr. E. 

 L. Sturtevant, which " had appeared upon wheat " at the Experimer 

 Station. 



In our present limited knowledge of the species of this genus, a 

 generic determination only could be made of it. 



From what is known of the larval habits of the few Sciara that have 

 been studied, and of their associated fifycetophilidce, it is not probable 

 that the species sent was injurious to wheat. The larvae, as a class, 

 are not regarded as injurious, as many of them are known to occur 

 beneath the bark of felled trees, in decayed wood and vegetables, in 

 vegetable mold, in fungi, etc. 



From their frequent occurrence in boleti and fungi, Latreille had 

 arranged the Mycetophilidce in his group of Fungivores — one of the 

 five into which he divided the Tipulidce. A noted fungivorous species 

 is the Sciara Thomce Linn., of Europe, known as the " army-worm " 

 (Hierwurm) in Germany. The larvae are remarkable for assembling 

 in immense numbers and hanging together by means of a viscid 

 moisture in a long mass resembling a snake or rope, sometimes several 

 feet in length, two or three inches in breadth, and perhaps a half inch 

 in thickness. Larger processions of these larvae have been observed, 



