REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



389 



species of Ophion that had evidently just punctured it with its oviposi- 

 tor aud was still attached to it. But before 1 could secure them the 

 Ophion had escaped aud the larva fell to the ground, and I failed to 

 find it. 



In June I found a larva with the eggs of some species of Tachina at- 

 tached to the upper surface of the thoracic segments. 



THE WHEAT MIDGE. 



(Diplosis tritici Kirby.) 



I first observed the larvse of this insect on the 6th of June, two days 

 after locating in Indiana. 



The larvae have not been excessively abundant on wheat, and I do not 

 think they have done any serious injury. 



Their non-destructiveness, however, was, to a considerable extent, I 

 think, due to the ravages among them of Megilla maculata and their 

 larvae, Podabrus tomentosus and three species of Telephoridas, all of which 

 were very abundant about the heads during June. 



While I have detected all of these, with the exception of the Megilla 

 larvae, in the act of feeding upon the pollen, and the Podabrus feeding 

 on the kernel, their movements unmistakably indicated that they were 

 in search of other food. I did not make it a special point to study the 

 midge until after the middle of July, when I placed a large quantity of 

 badly -in tested heads of rye in a box with earth in order to secure a 

 quantity of larvse. 



From these heads of rye I bred, during the remainder of July, a con- 

 siderable number of adult midges, and they also appeared occasionally 

 in the box during August, although I had removed the head of rye on 

 the 31st of July. 



On August 29 I saw an adult on the outside of the glass of one of my 

 breeding- cages in which I had growing wheat. 



Several times since the 1st of September I have noticed a repetition 

 of this, although my cages are at least half of a mile from any field 

 where wheat or rye was grown the present season, or from where any 

 has been threshed. 



From the 4th to the 15th of September I not only found larvse in con- 

 siderable abundance under the sheath of volunteer wheat, but adults, 

 too, in the same situation, and also on the outside of the plants and 

 hovering about the upper leaves. 



From a quantity of this wheat placed in a breeding-cage on Septem- 

 ber 7 appeared three or four adults. These were all removed on the 

 loth, but the second day after two others were found in the cage. The 

 history of this volunteer wheat is as follows: During the time inter- 

 vening between the harvesting and removal of the wheat from a field, 

 siock from an adjoining pasture broke into the field, and in nibbling the 

 sheaves in the shocks, shelled off and rattled downward to the gound 

 considerable wheat. 



These shocks were removed on August 14, the wheat thus shelled off 

 immediately taking root and springing up where they had stood, and 

 by September 1 had formed a thick mass of growing grain. 



THE AMERICAN MEROMYZA. 



(Meromyza americana Fitch.) 



This species has been recently so thoroughly studied by Prof. S. A. 

 Forbes in his second report as State entomologist of Illinois, that I 

 made no special effort to follow it through the season, but kept it in 



