140 
Observations on the various Insects 
in many of them an orange-coloured powder, and in several one or 
two very minute larvae, difFerincr in colour from a yellowish white 
to a deep yellow. They were thick at one end, and gradually 
diminished to a point at the other, where the head was situate. 
They extended and contracted themselves at pleasure ; to wliich 
was added a leaping motion, frequently jumping full half an inch 
from the paper on which 1 examined them. The grain where these 
insects had possession appeared a little shrunk." In the first week 
of August, Mr. Markwick, of Catsfield, near Battle, found some 
of the insects in a few ears in his fields ; they were lodged between 
the husks or outward scales of the calyx, which were discoloured, 
but the grain did not appear to have received any injury. He 
never met with it in the state of a small white larva, but it was 
always of a bright yellow colour, and changed into an egg-shaped 
chrysalis of the same colour. Subsequently he found the larvae 
between the corolla and the grain, and even on the grain itself, but 
he could never discover that they had eaten into any of them. 
In the October following he was persuaded that his wheat had 
received no damage from the presence of these minute insects ; 
and he adds, that "since the harvest has been got in 1 have found 
the same insect in the husks of the wild bearded oats, Avena 
fatua, but have not yet seen it in its fly or perfect state." In the 
summer of 1795 Mr. Kirby found citron-coloured larvae between 
the corolla and the grain, in the neighbourhood of Ipswich, in 
Suffolk. 
Mr. Markwick again in 1797* first noticed some of the little 
flies on the 12th of July; they were sitting between the husks of 
the ears of wheat, the next day they were more abundant, and 
then he also found a few of the small yellow larvae of the Ceci- 
domyxa lying close to the stamina (fig. 10) ; he observed them in 
much greater abundance later, but he thought the fly was reduced 
in numbers at that time. Mr. Markwick bred the C. tritici (?) 
and Platyfjaster tipida: from ears enclosed in a flower-pot, but he 
says the Cecidomyia, for such it is by a figure given from one of 
his specimens,! " was as minute, if not less (than the parasite), 
with a yellow body, spotted and transparent wings, and long-joipted 
antennae, beset with small hairs or bristles at each joint." Mr. 
Marsham terms the spots on the wings " obsolete clouds." I am 
particular in noticing this, because the wings of Mr. Kirby's 
C tritici arc not spotted, nor are any individuals that I have seen, 
and excepting the C. pictipennis, which is larger, I know of no 
species ol' the genus with spotted wings. 
In the same volume of the ' Linna^an Transactions' was pub- 
lished Mr. Kirby's admirable paper illustrative of the history of 
* Trans. Linn. Soc, vol. iv. p. 225. 
•I- Ibid., pi. 19, f. 2, a, b. 
