273 
No. 105.] 
is performed, and that it has therefore never been seen. The straw 
itself being wet, and the body of the worm rendered supple by the 
moisture surrounding it, it leaves its abode in the head of the wheat, 
and adhering to the wet straw by the glutinousness of the surface 
of its body, gradually works its way downwards by the wriggling 
motion to which it so often resorts when disturbed, until it reaches 
the ground. That there is such a glutinous secretion upon the sur¬ 
face of the worm as would enable it to adhere to the wet straw in 
the manner supposed, I might adduce a number of facts to prove. I 
was desirous of taking a drawing of the larvae which I found among 
wheat-stubble last March ; but particles of earth adhered to them 
so firmly, that I could not separate them with the point of a needle 
without also mutilating the w T orms. A few weeks since, on visiting 
a neighbor’s threshing-floor, I gathered a number of larvae by mois¬ 
tening the end of my finger and touching it to the worm, which, 
thus adhering, was scraped off upon the edge of a tin box. The box 
is now before me, with each of the worms alive, but firmly glued to 
its sides, and many of them to each other ; and on forcibly removing 
some of them, the outer dried and hardened case of the worm is 
fractured in the operation. 
It would thus appear that those worms which are matured, leave 
the grain at the close of a shower, and crawl down the wet straw to 
the earth. It may be also, that a heavy night-dew sometimes fur¬ 
nishes a sufficient degree of moisture to enable them to do this. 
But on the other hand, those worms which are later in arriving at 
maturity, in ^waiting suitable weather for making the same descent are, 
ere such weather arrives, carried with the grain into the barn. 
As illustrating the strong tenacity of life possessed by these larva?, 
I may in this connexion state, that the few specimens gathered in 
March as already stated, were placed with a little earth in a vial, and 
a piece of gauze tied over its mouth, for the purpose of ascertaining 
the transformations of the insect, if any, from its then condition to 
that of a winged fly. Other avocations diverted my attention, and 
this vial was forgotten for a fortnight; by which time the earth within 
had become so completely dried, that not doubting but the worms had 
all perished, no farther attention w T as paid to it, and it remained in a 
dry room over three months, until the middle of June, when, on ex¬ 
amining it, half the specimens put into the vial were found to have 
[Senate, No. 105.] 18 
