STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
m 
MIDGE. FLY• KIItBY’s ACCOVHT OF TBE OYlrOSITOR. 
And on coming to re-issue it now, I have not deemed it so faulty 
in the points stated as to desire it to be changed. 
We come next to consider the manner and place in which the 
midge deposits its eggs and the apparatus by which this opera¬ 
tion is performed. 
Mr. Kirby gives an interesting recital of this subject in the 
following words, (Linnaean Transactions, vol. v., p. 90.) 
“ It is very entertaining to observe the method to which these 
insects have recourse in order to deposit their eggs in a situation 
where the larvas may soon arrive at their food : when engaged in 
this employment they arc not soon disturbed ; which circumstance 
affords the observer an excellent opportunity of examination. As 
I hinted before, a number may be seen at the same time upon one 
ear: they place themselves in such a position that their anus 
stands nearly at right, angles with the margin of the glume of 
that floret which they mean to pierce. But how are they to 
introduce their eggs within the floret, for they deposit them be¬ 
tween the exterior and interior valvules of the corolla? To look 
at them when they are not engaged in this employment, their 
anus appears to be furnished with no instrument adapted to so 
nice an operation ; but upon pressure it exserts a long retractile 
tube or vagina , which unsheaths an aculeus (if I may so term it) 
as fine as a hair and very long. This aculeus it introduces into 
the floret, and there deposits its eggs, which it usually places upon 
the interior valvule of the corolla, just above the stigmata. 
After she has done laying her eggs, the insect withdraws her acu¬ 
leus with great caution and deliberation : yet it sometimes hap¬ 
pens that she is unable to effect this ; in which case she is 
detained a prisoner until some enemy devour her. In this situa¬ 
tion I have found them more than once in my morning walks. I 
was very desirous of seeing the eggs pass through the vagina, 
but my first attempts were unsuccessful: at length 1 was gratified 
with this pleasing spectacle. I gathered an ear upon which some 
of the TipulcR were busy, and held it so as to let a sunbeam fall 
upon one of them, examining its operations under the three 
glasses of a pocket microscope : I could then very distinctly per¬ 
ceive the eggs passing one after another, like minute air-bubbles, 
through the vagina, the aculeus being wholly inserted into the 
floret. I examined this process for full teh minutes before the 
patient little animal disengaged itself, and at last it was through 
