affecting the Com- Crops. 
147 
Suffolk, Hertfordshire, Sussex, Dorsetshire, Devonshire, Cornwall, 
Shropshire, the north of Ireland and Scotland. On the 17tL 
June, 1S42, I found the flies abundant near Glanville's Wootlon, 
Dorset: in walking through a wheat-field, which was just coming 
into ear with here and there a spike in flower, I saw the little 
ochreous CecidomyifB flying about, alighting on the ears, and 
getting a little between the chatT. They were all females, as far 
as I could observe ; with them I also detected a few of the ^^nL- 
&\i\c Platygasters. Having now detailed all that is known relative 
to the economy of the British Wheat -midge, I will describe the fly. 
It belongs to the order diptera, the family tipulid^, and 
was formerly included by Linnaeus, Kirby, &c. in the genus 
TiPULA ; but owing to its structure, and the neuration of the wings * 
departing considerably from the typical species, it has very pro- 
perly been separated from that immense group, and is now de- 
signated by Meigen and others 
3. Cecidomyia tritici : the female (figs. 7 ; and 8, the same mag- 
nified) is pale ochreous, pubescent : eyes intensely black, and 
coarsely granulated, meeting on the crown and covering nearly 
the whole head ; ocelli none ; no part of the mouth is visible, 
except a short bilobed pilose lip and two incurved palpi or feelers, 
they are four-jointed and slightly pilose : the antennae are stretched 
forward or curved upward, and inserted close together in front of 
the face ; they are as long as the body, pale brown, and clothed 
with longish hairs; they are composed of thirteen sub-elliptical 
joints, contracted round the middle and connected at the ends by a 
single thread, like a string of beads (fig. s) : thorax ovate and 
deep reddish ochre; scutellum transverse-osal : abdomen rather 
short and tapering to the apex, which is furnished with an ovi- 
positor nearly thrice as lon^ as the body, the sheaths at the base 
stout, the oviduct exceedingly slender (fig. 8, r) : wings iiiciiml)ent 
in repose, longer than the body, yellowish white, and beautifully 
iridescent, pubescent, and ciliated, costal nervure surroun dng the 
wing, subcostal short, second extending to the margin, third 
shorter, the apex forked: two halteres or poisers large and capi- 
tate : six legs, long, slender, and nearly of equal length ; thighs 
and shanks equally loner; tars: or feet five-jointed, basal joint 
mintite in all, second as long as the tibiae, the remoinder decreasing 
in length; claws very minute (fig. u, the articulated foot). The 
male I have never seen, but no doubt the antennae are ditTerent, 
being usually composed of twenty-five globose joints which are 
more remotely strung than in the female,f as exhibited in fig. t. 
Mr. Kirby describes the pupa or chrysalis as slender, acute at 
both ends, and of a reddish colour. 
* Vide Curtis s But. Ent., pi. and lol. 178, lor dissections, 
t Ibid., pi. 178, fig. 3. 
L 2 
