36 



may 1^ found feeding on the tissues of the stem from the middle 

 of June to the first of August, by which latter date all have 

 pupated and most have transformed to winged flies. These have 

 been seen to emerge from the pupa at intervals from July 4 to 

 August 5, and, in all probability, then remain in waiting for an 

 opportunity to lay their eggs on the earliest wheat to appear." 



A brief note in the Eeport for the following year (1884) p. 54, 

 confirms the above account by mention of the occurrence of half- 

 grown larvae in rye October 31. It is now rendered probable, how- 

 ever, that these larvae were descendants of an earlier brood by 

 which the same rye had been infested, the field in which these 

 occurred having been sown for pasture July 9. At any rate the 

 observations of the present year in experimental wheat sown for 

 •the study of the life history of the Hessian fly, show unques- 

 tionably the existence of an additional brood in volunteer wheat 

 in August and September, the corresponding stages of this insect 

 -occurring side by side with those of the Hessian fly, or possibly, 

 •on an average, somewhat earlier. 



The inference of an additional brood was first announced in a 

 paper read by me August, 1886, before the Entomological Club of 

 ihe American Association for the Advancement of Science, a brief 

 abstract of which was printed in the "Canadian Entomologist" for 

 September, 1886. The same fact was also stated in a paper on 

 "Entomological Progress in Illinois," printed in the "Prairie 

 J^armer" for November 13, 1886. 



My first notes of the year on this subject were made August 4, 

 ►as the result of a visit to an experimental wheat plot sown July 

 13, at Billett Station, in Lawrence county. This wheat had 

 sprung up finely and was at that date from one to four inches 

 high. About a week earlier, the owner had noticed that it had 

 •ceased growing, or was even dwindling away, and now from one 

 half to two thirds of it was dead, many of the plants entirely 

 gone, and others with the central leaf withered and the growth of 

 the plant arrested. The base of this dead leaf was always gnawed 

 or eaten within the sheath, and in every case where the author 

 of this mischief could be found (probably in about ten per cent, 

 of the damaged plants) it proved to be the larva of Meromyza, 

 varying from half size to full grown. On a single leaf the eggs 

 of the species were found still unhatched. Additional larvae, now 

 full grown, were obtained from this field September 3. By the 5th 

 September most of these had formed puparia, and the flies 

 emerged September 28. From other larva3 obtained September 11, no 

 Meromyza imagos were bred, but several of the commonest parasites 

 of the species, Coelinius meromyzce^ Forbes, appeared in the breed- 

 ing cage about two weeks later. 



From a i^lot of wheat sown at Edgewood, August 5, the larvae 

 wwe obtained on the 22d September, .and a single adult Meromyza 

 resulted October 22. Larvje of this brood (or possibly the next) con- 

 tinued to appear in small numbers in our collections until the 



