SIPHONOPHOEA GEANAEIA, 
117 
Doubtless tbe injury done is not so much from the 
quantity of nutritive sap which they withdraw from 
the plant as from the incessant irritation produced by 
the punctures of the sucking apparatus. A sickly 
condition and a yellow colour are soon induced upon 
the corn plants ; but, just as the hop crop is often 
saved by the appearance of swarms of Coccinellidce 
and other checks to Aphides^ so the wheat crop is 
often saved by the operations of certain minute 
IchneumonidcB and Ghalcidice. 
If the ears of wheat be searched early in the month 
of July, very probably a number of dead or dying 
insects will be found fixed singly at the base of each 
grain, with their heads usually turned downwards. 
These insects, which are of a rich sienna-brown colour, 
are the pupse of iS. granaria which have been struck 
by a small, black, winged fly {Ephedrus plagiator ?) . 
These parasites may be obtained without difficulty if 
some of the blighted wheat ears are preserved under 
a bell glass, when they emerge from the round holes 
they cut in the Aphis pup^. They possess attenuated 
shining bodies, long hairy legs, and many jointed 
antennae. The insects appear very large when re- 
ferred to the empty skins within which they have 
undergone their metamorphosis. 
If the cornfields be again searched a little later in 
the month, another insect of a difierent genus will be 
seen running with excitement over the wheat ears/and 
tapping with its rapidly vibrating antennas the pupae 
already struck by the Ephedriis before mentioned. 
One of these ears was placed under a microscope of 
low power for observation. Notwithstanding this 
novel situation the winged insect, which was identi- 
fied with Gemphron Garpenteri^ Oust,^ was too much 
interested in its work to suspend its operations. 
After the Ceraphron had satisfied itself that a pupa 
had not been previously tampered with by one of its own 
* Ceraphron clandestinum, Nees ab Esseiibeck. Vide Ouftis, ‘ Farm 
Insects/ p. 292. 
