STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
1 6? 
MIDGE. FLY. BODY DESCRIBED. 
It is pale yellow on the breast and on the back ochro or tawny yellow, darker anteriorly and 
often smoky, this color sometimes appearing as threo short stripes or longitudinal spots for¬ 
ward of the middle. The poisers are large, with oval honey-yellow heads. 
The abdomen or hind body vnries greatly in its size and form as it is more or less dis¬ 
tended with eggs and aliment. Its normal forms appears to be oval, as represented in fig. 3 
of plate ii, wliea it is often bat little longer than the thorax, and closely resembles the larva 
(fig. 11) in its shape and sutures, having also the same granular surface. It is seven- 
jointed, the joints of a square form, much more broad than long, except the last joint which 
often appears round like a ball, as represented in fig. 2, or if this joint is a little more pro¬ 
truded it becomes obovate. But when the abdomen is distended with eggs and the fly is 
engaged in depositing them, its hind part becomes prolonged and narrowed, ns represented in 
fig. 1, this being the shape it usually has as we see it in the wheat fields, two small additional 
joints now protruding more or less from the round joint above mentioned. These two addi¬ 
tional joints will bo noticed more particularly hereafter when wo come to describe the manner 
in which the eggs aro deposited. The ends of two minute appendages aro also commonly 
seen protruded more cr less from the tip of the abdomen. In color, the abdomen is usually of 
a uniform bright orange, more inclining to red than to yellow; and when the insect is crushed 
on white cloth or paper it imparts this orange stain to it, which however fades and wholly 
disappears after a time. 
The LEGS are very long and slender, the thighs, shanks and second joint of the feet being 
about equal to each other in their length, whilst the third, fourth and fifth joints of the feet 
are successively shorter and the first joint shortest of all, being little longer than thick. 
The legs are of a dull opake clay yellow color, sometimes with the ends of the feet or bands 
on some of tho legs of a rose red. The legs and body are clothed with minute, slender, 
longish lmirs. 
The WINGS aro a little moro than twico as long as wide, and aro hyaline and colorless, 
resembling thin plates of glass or mica, and reflecting the colors of the rainbow, particularly 
the violet, when tho light falls on them in certain directions. Their margins are densely 
fringed with longish hairs and their surface is covered with very minute puboscence. Four 
veins may be distinguished, running lengthwise of tho wing, the same as in all tho 
other species of Cecidomyia, though in some spocies they are much more distinct and fully 
developed than in others. I shall carefully describe these veins here, so that when^I speak 
of them in other places I may be definitely understood. The four veins (see the enlarged 
wing, fig. 5, plate ii) are an outer, an inner, and two middle ones. Tho outer, or submargi¬ 
nal vein as it is usually termed by entomologists, is but slightly separated from tho outer 
edge or side of tho wing, with which it becomes united before it reaches half the length of 
this side. The next or middle vein, which is tho principal one, being more ooarso and distinct 
than tho others, and corresponding with what I have usually termed the midvein in other 
insects, and in the leaves of plants, is named the postcostal by most entomologists, but by 
some tho mediastinal and by others the externo-mcdial. This runs straight or with a scarcely 
perceptible curve, to tho end of the wing, where it frequently causes a small notch in tho 
margin. Towards its base it is slightly bent at one point, and hero it sends ofT a small vein- 
let or cross-vein, which runs obliquely outward and slightly forward, connecting this middle 
vein with tho outor vein near its middle. The noxt or inner ono of these two middle veins, 
and which may therefore ho termed the inner middle vein, is technically named tho interno- 
medial or by some simply tho medial. This is tho most faint of all tho veins, being only 
perceptible when tho wing is held for the light to fall upon it in a particular direction. It is 
then soon to bo straight, coming off from the midvein near its base and running to the inner 
margin of the wing at a point three-fourths the distance from the base to the tip. The first 
half of its longth is less distinot and can seldom be traced to the point whoro it originates. 
The inner or anal vein is but slightly distant from the preceding, and is quite slender, but 
perfectly distinct. It slightly diverges from tho middle vein as it oxtends backward in a 
straight course about half tho length of tho wing, when it abruptly forks, ono branch run¬ 
ning straight in a nearly transverse direction to the inner margin, and the other branoh, which 
is moro faint and obsoure, curving outward and backward till it approaches quite near the 
inner middle vein, parallel with wbioh it then extends onward to tho margin, although here 
