STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
593 
fy'mg glass shows this specimen to be quite perfect, the wings, the long 
antennae, like strings of beads, the feet, every part in fact, being hereby 
rendered beautifully distinct. 
By the side of this invisible object, you will see the female fly of the 
wheat midge, glued upon a square slip of paper with its wings extended— 
whereby it is rendered much more distinct. 
This fly, it will be remembered, deposits its eggs in the heads of the young 
wheat, from which hatch minute worms or maggots of a bright yellow color, 
which lie inside of the chaff, and in contact with the young soft kernels of 
the wheat, from which they abstract the nourishment, so that these grains 
or kernels become shrivelled and dwarfish. In addition to the male and 
female flies of the wheat midge, I have placed in the box several of the 
small yellow worms, taken from wheat heads, and glued to a slip of paper, 
and also, glued to another slip of paper, several kernels of wheat, shriv¬ 
elled by this insect. 
This is the same insect which, in many neighborhoods, is called the 
weevil — the most inappropriate name that could possibly be given to it, 
for the midge is no more like a weevil , than an eagle or a hawk is like an 
elephant. And to show how very dissimilar the two insects are, I have 
placed in the same box 
The grain weevil , an insect which infests the dry, stored wheat, in the 
bins in granaries and warehouses, but never attacks it when it is growing 
in the field. The grain weevil originated in Europe and is quite common 
there, but is only occasionally met with in this country ; an American 
insect very closely like it, named the rice weevil, being much oftener found 
with us, in wheat, in Indian corn, and other grains which have been long 
kept, as well as in rice. 
In this second box you will sec a specimen of the Hessian fly , of which 
I have already spoken somewhat fully; and also a specimen of the white 
worms or larvae which hatch from the eggs of this fly, and several of the 
brown pupm or flax seeds, as they are commonly called, into which the 
worms change after they get their growth. These worms and flax seeds 
are found at the roots of the young wheat plants in autumn and winter, 
and after the stalks shoot up, the following spring, a second brood of them 
appears, lying immediately above the lower joints, in the straw, weakening 
the stalks so that they break and lop down. 
You will also see in this box, a specimen of the straw, thus broken, and 
showing several of the flax seeds imbedded in it. 
In another box you will see specimens of the fly which produces the 
joint-worm , which of late years has wholly destroyed the wheat fields in 
some parts of Virginia—and instances have occurred both in our own 
State and in Massachusetts, of a closely similar insect infesting fields of 
barley, and greatly injuring them. But I have no knowledge of its ever 
attacking the wheat crop with us. 
This joint-worm is so similar in its appearance, and in its operations to 
[Ag. Trans.] 88 
