No. 105.] 279 ■' 
themselves instantly on the ground, and it is a slow and tedious task 
for them to get up to the heads ftf the grain again. A similar pro¬ 
cess, but with a different apparatus, I contemplate employing against 
the wheat-fly. This ap paratus is alight net made of gauze, three 
or four feet deep and one or two rods long; its mouth reaching the 
entire length of the net, and opening to a width of about eighteen 
inches. A small rope is to be stitched to the upper and another to 
the lower side of the mouth, reaching slightly beyond the net at each 
end, which is to be carried by two persons holding the ends of these 
ropes. If on closely examining the wheat-fields of my vicinity, from 
the time that the heads begin to protrude from their sheaths, the fly 
is found to be gathering in swarms in any one of them, I intend re¬ 
pairing to that field in the evening, when the insects will be hovering 
in such myriads about the heads of the grain, and, with an assistant, 
carrying the net so that the lower cord will strike a few inches below 
the heads of grain, the upper one being held nearly afoot in advance 
of it, and about the same distance above the tops of the heads, by 
keeping the cords tense and walking at a uniformly rapid pace from 
side to side of the field, until the whole is swept over, I shall be 
much disappointed if countless millions are not gathered into the 
net, which is to be instantly closed whenever a pause is made, by 
bringing the cords together. It is now to be folded or rolled together 
into a smaller compass, and then pressed by the hands or otherwise 
so as to crush the vermin contained within it. This measure has 
been suggested to me, by observing the perfect facility with which 
the small entomological fly-net becomes filled with these flies, on 
sweeping it to and fro a few times among the heads of infested 
wheat in the evening. Of course this operation should be resorted 
to on the first appearance of the fly in numbers, and before its eggs 
have been deposited so profusely as will occur in the course^of a 
few days. I feel strongly confident, that by sweeping over a field 
a very few times in the manner above described, the fly may be so 
completely thinned out and destroyed, as to be incapable of injuring 
the crop perceptibly. 
With regard to destroying the fly in the earlier stages of its exis¬ 
tence, only a few words will require to be said. Whoever has read 
the preceding account of the habits of this insect, must have been 
struck with a consciousness of the perfect facility with which that 
