764 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW YORK 
MIDGE. PLY. A PIT JOBS PAYORS IT. 
standing upon the grain stalks with its head upward. As the 
sun declines and the dews of evening are beginning to fall, it 
leaves its retreat and returns to its operations upon the wheat 
heads. Whilst the sun is yet shining, numbers of them may be 
seen returned to their work upon the wheat heads, indicating that 
it is not the light of tho sun’s rays as has heretofore been sup¬ 
posed that they avoid, so much as the drying heat of those rays. 
Upon damp cloudy days, also, the insect remains at its work upon 
the heads as active as during the night. Or if a tree bo stand¬ 
ing in the field, or a forest borders it upon one side, within the 
shade thus produced it continues its operations more or less dur¬ 
ing the day. And hence, as has often been noticed, those spots 
which are shaded by trees have been severely devastated or oven 
destroyed when all the rest of the field was but little injured. 
Hence also, wheat fields upon low lands, in the valleys and 
upon the flats along rivers, are always more injured by the midge 
than those upon the more dry uplands and hills. This has been 
noticed everywhere. And where a field has low marshy spots 
within or adjoining it, the grain adjacent to such spots is very 
perceptibly injured worse than it is elsewhere. 
As it is from the middle to the end of June that this fly is 
abroad and actively engaged ■ in depositing its eggs, if the wea¬ 
ther at that time is extremely, dry the wheat crop that year 
escapes injury; whilst, on the other hand, if the last half of June 
is unusually wet, cloudy and showery, this grain will be severely 
devastated. From the close observation I have been giving to 
this subject the past and present years, the one having a dry the 
other a wet June, as fully narrated on a preceding page, I do not 
doubt but that I am safe in stating the above as a general rule, 
although I have not at hand such meteorological records as 
enable me to be fully assured that such has been the stato of the 
weather in June, in every instance when this insect has been very 
numerous on the one hand or very sparse on the other. The few 
notes, however, touching upon this matter, which I am able to 
meet with among my memoranda, are probably of sufficient value 
to be here presented. I find it noticed in 1852, that it was re¬ 
markably dry and our streams of water were all unusually low the 
last of June; and in 1853, that the weather was very dry in June 
but not afterwards. Upon referring to the foregoing history I 
have prepared of this insect, I find I have stated that in these two 
