138 
Observations on the various Insects 
actually to have been the cause. This soon proved to be un- 
founded ; for the mischief gradually spread from the poor to the 
best lands, until the whole was blighted. Two-thirds of the straw 
at least was laid in less than a week, and the work of devastation 
was completed by the heavy fall of rain which took place during 
the latter part of June. The straw thus prostrated produced only 
small abortive ears ; the few grains they contained were shrivelled, 
and would scarcely ripen, and the straw was of a very bad 
quality. 
On examining the roots of those plants which had died off, the 
soft straw where the larvae had stationed themselves in families, 
within the sheath of the leaf, appeared withered, tough, and brown, 
yet not wounded : at this period the larvae were transformed into 
pupee, which were found in clusters inside of each leaf-sheath, at 
the first joint next to the crown of the root. 
On the estates of the Duke of Saxe Coburg, at Weikendorf and 
in other parts of that neighbourhood, whole fields were destroyed. 
The larvae were found to live in society, forming a sort of nest be- 
tween the straw and the sheath. Tliey are said to penetrate into 
the tube of the straw : however that maybe, they deprive the stem 
of the sap, and it consequently withers and dies. The larvae are 
of a pale green colour, with a minute black dot above : they do 
not exceed two lines in length ; and they live from about three 
weeks to a month : the pupa is brown, and enclosed in a case. It 
was several weeks before the fly hatched ; it is extremely small 
and delicate, scarcely so large as a common gnat ; the body is 
clothed with short black hairs: the thorax is very convex, smooth, 
and shining: the scutellum projects, and is rounded behind; the 
breast being sometimes of a golden yellow colour, the abdomen 
brownish : the wings are blackish ; the deep yellow of the base 
sometimes extends to the nervures, where it is gradually softened 
off: the poisers are yellowish-white; the base of the thighs is 
golden yellow : female has a black streak on the abdomen. 
The above descriptions do not agree with Say's;* and I see, by 
a paragraph in the Entomological Transactions, Mr. Herrick, of 
New Haven, North America, had informed Mr. Spence that fhe 
accounts hitherto published concerning the natural history of the 
Hessian fly were very erroneous : he considered it to be referable 
to Meigen's genus Lasioptera ;\ and it is attacked by five parasites, 
two of which belonged to the genera Eurytoma and Plati/gaster. 
Mr. Spence also observed, at a previous meeting of the Entomolo- 
gical Society, that Dr. Hammcrschmidl's Cecidovvjia, which is the 
Hungarian one, is specifically distinct from Mr. Kirby's C- tritici; 
* Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia for 1817, 
vol. i. p. 45, pi. 3, fig. 1 — 3. 
t Curtis's Guide, genus 1 147. 
