affecting the Corn- Crops. 
151 
together at an angle, sloping like the roof of a house, and the chaff 
readily fell oil' on each side to the floor, whilst dust and pupae 
passed through. If a simple contrivance of this kind foruied an 
appendage to every winnowing-machine in tlie country, what 
myriads on myriads of tiie jjupa; might be collected and de- 
stroyed! Tlie researches which I have made on the subject since 
my report was written have satisfied me that the damage done by 
this minute insect is much greater than aojriculturists are at all 
aware of.' * 
Sauterf gives the history of another little gnat or midge, ex- 
ceedingly injurious to barley and a variety of dwarf wheat called 
spelt: there is every reason to believe it is a Cecidomyia, and he 
has named it 
TiPULA CKREALis — the Barley-midge. 
In the grand duchy of Baden, during the years 1813 and 1816, 
the destruction occasioned to those crops by the larvae of this little 
midge was very alarming. They are of a vermilion colour, and 
from 1 line to 1^ line long: they make their appearance in May 
and June, living in famihes between the leaf-sheath and the stalk, 
eating the straw, which thereby becomes warty, notched and 
crooked, and eventually dies. 
The larva, like its allies, has no feet, and is stated to be com- 
posed of nine segments, including the head and tail, both of which 
it is able to retract and extend, but between each abdominal ring 
on either side there are small hooks bent forward. The larvae 
enter the earth to undergo their transformations when they are 
full grown. 
The perfect insect, like most of its congeners, is very ephemeral, 
having only a few hours to accomplish its destiny, whilst the time 
it is passing through its transformations occupies, it appears, from 
two to three years. The perfect insect is brownish red, and the 
two wings of a silvery colour ; the horns are bristle-shaped, longer 
than the body, and composed of thirteen joints. 
Dr. Sauter, in order to destroy this pest, proposes to mow all 
the fields at the period when the development of the perfect in- 
sects is completed, so that the eggs which are laid and the larvae 
that are hatched may both be destroyed. This remedy may be 
thought as bad as the disease ; yet the loss might not be so great 
as it would at first appear, and it nmst eflfectually prevent the re- 
appearance of the barley-midges. 
The oats of Styria and Carinthia received great damage, several 
years since, probably from the same or a nearly allied in<eci. In 
this instance the devastation of the oat-fields was repeated for 
* Gardener's Chronicle, vol. i. p. .^)2. 
t Germars Mag. der Entom., vol.iii. p. 3G6. 
