i88 



Pear Midge. 



certain farm near Meriden, in Connecticut, no insect of 

 similar habits was known in the United States. 



There is no doubt that it is the same insect as that termed 

 Cccidomyia nigra by Meigen. This is affirmed by Schmid- 

 berger, who first described the habits of this insect in 1831. 

 He says : *' The species of gall-midges found by me in the 

 pears are evidently the Cccidomyia nigra, because the 

 description which Meigen gives of the black gall-midge 

 completely agrees with this. I retain Meigen's name, and 

 call it the black gall-midge." Riley, however, suggested 

 that the name of Diplosis pyrivora would be more suitable, 

 and this has been adopted by dipterists. It is not 

 known how long it has been at work in this country. It was 

 first mentioned twenty-five years ago, and there is every 

 reason to believe that it had been present here long before 

 this, for its action upon pears, as pointed out above, closely 

 resembles that of weather and other natural causes, and 

 might easily have been mistaken for these, especially as 

 there were then comparatively few trained observers. 



Life History. 



^ The fly is nearly one-tenth of an inch long, with an expanse 

 of wings equal to close upon one-fifth of an inch. Its slender 

 body is dark grey, approaching black, in colour ; its antennae, 

 with twenty-six joints in the male, are brown and very long ; 

 its legs are also very long, and yellowish brown. The 

 female is slightly longer than the male, having antennae 

 with fourteen joints, and an exceedingly long ovipositor for 

 the purpose of depositing her eggs in the calyces of the 

 blossoms of the pears. Schmidberger witnessed the process 

 of egg-laying, and describes it as follows : I found the first 

 gall-midge in the act of laying its eggs in the blossom ; this 

 was on the 12th of April. It had fixed itself almost perpen- 

 dicularly in the middle of a single blossom, and having 

 pierced the petal with its long ovipositor, it laid its eggs on 

 the anther of the still closed blossom. This female was about 

 seven and a-half minutes laying her eggs. When she had 

 flown away, I cut the pierced bud in two, and found the eggs 

 lying in a heap one upon another on the anthers. They were 

 white, longish, pointed on one side, and transparent, and from 



