490 
Observations on the various Insects 
the hinder margin is reheved by a transverse black patch ; the 
abdomen is scarcely longer than the thorax and not broader, it is 
ovate-conic and depressed, formed of five segments, of a pale 
greenish black, the margins darker, forming four black bands when 
alive, and there is a minute black dot on each side of tlie basal 
segment; wings incumbent in repose (fig. 23), extending consider- 
ably beyond the tail, transparent, beautifully iridescent ; costal 
nervure brown and extending to the submarginal nervure only 
(fig. n), which is brown also, the inferior ones paler, the two 
transverse nervures on the disc do not approximate; halleres 
clavate and white ; six legs moderately long, simple, and slcndjr, 
of an ochrcous colour; the feet five-jointed, anterior black, with 
the second and third joints ochreous, intermediate and hinder with 
the two terminal joints alone black ; claws and pulvelli also black ; 
length \\ line, expanse 3i (fig. 21, highly magnified). 
As I have great doubts regarding this insect being only a variety 
of Fabricius's Musca lineata, I have adopted Meigen's name ; 
their economy is undoubtedly similar, but his descripiion is too 
incomplete to enable any one to determine the point, and Meigen's 
insect is at once distinguished from all others of the genus by the' 
pale band on the intensely black fore-feet. 
On the 7th of August, 1841, a friend informed me that, in 
going into a small wheat-field in Surrey, it was lamentable to see 
the multitude of stems and ears that were injured and disfigured. 
The wheat had been transplanted, the stalks were scored, and in 
them were the chrysalides of maggots protected by the leaf. Upon 
inspecting the three stems that accompanied the communication, 
one of which is represented in pi. K, fig. 24, and pi. L, fig. 25, 
the former being the upper and the latter the lower portion of the 
same stem, I observed an irregular brown channel commencing a 
short space above the joint (fig. 25, o), which extended to the base 
of the ear (fig. 24, p). At figure o I found a shining brown pupa, 
from whence I concluded that the egg had been deposited at a 
somewhat early stage of the wheat, possibly in May or June, and 
that the larva fed, working its way down, within an inch or an inch 
and a half of the joint, where it was enveloped and secured by the 
leaves, and would no doubt turn round before changing to a pupa. 
I then split the stems longitudinally, and found that the channels 
formed by the maggot in no instance penetrated through, but that 
there was occasionally a corresponding thickening inside of the 
straw ; I had seven pupae, all of which appeared to be dead, ex- 
cepting one (fig. 26), through the skin of which I could trace the 
embryo fly. which eventually ])roved to be the Chlorops ttcniopus. 
On a second examination 1 found in two of the eai-s that the 
larvae had commenced eating about half an inch above the base of 
the car, and kept apparently on the surface of the stalk, which is. 
