458 
LEAVES FROM AN OLD DIARY. 
Under the same date occurs the following : “ Wheat troubled with 
the Insect but [?J had none of the orange gum.” 
Dr. Sutton evidently here refers to the Wheat Midge, Ceciclo- 
myia tritici, Kirby, an insect infesting wheat during the period 
of its inflorescence, which -was attracting a good deal of attention 
at that time from entomologists, and it is probable that his friend 
Kirby had asked his co-operation in the study of its habits and 
distribution, a task in which the latter was then engaged. The way 
in which the life history of this minute insect and its parasites 
was worked out by Marsham, Goodenough, Markwick, and Kirby, 
and their admirable papers on the subject, published in the 
‘Transactions’ of the Linnean Society (vols. iii. and iv.), are 
a standing monument to their perseverance and capacity for critical 
observation, and a lasting object lesson to their followers. 
Excellent coloured figures of the insect in its various stages 
of development, from drawings made for Sir Joseph Banks of 
Yorkshire specimens, are given in Yol. iii. of the ‘ Transactions,’ 
Tab. 22. Kirby named this insect Tipula tritica, and an 
Ichneumon which made the larva the host in which to deposit its 
ovum, Ichneumon tipulce ; he subsequently discovered two other 
species of Ichneumon which also infested the larvae of this Fly ; 
these three species Mr. James Edwards tells me are now known 
as Leptacis tipulce, Kirby; Isostasius inserens, Kirby; and Eurytoma 
penetrans, Kirby. The “ orange gum ” mentioned, called by the 
farmers the “red gum,” Dr. Plowright tells me is the Uredospore 
of Puccinia glumarum, formerly known as Uredo glumarum, a rust 
which attacks the ear of the wheat, and which, at a certain stage 
of its development, has the appearance of a yellow exudation 
or gum. 
August 18. “Tythe diun r at Holme, Mr. Faircloth said that in 
large tides the water in the wells at Holme was known to rise 
sometimes 2 foot. Wells are supplied w th water sometimes by 
land springs & sometimes by private springs. He [FairclothJ is 
knowing about Bees & has hived ’em in skeps where the comb has 
been left by Bees w ch have died.” 
— „ — 20th “ Party at Hunstanton Cliff. Mem. The Cliff 
is 55 feet high being 5 higher than at Margate, Mr. N. Styleman 
measured it. Pleasant rain after 7 weeks continued drought.” 
