STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
181 
MIDOE. FLY. CABBE OF MB. KiBBY’S KBBOB. 
long,” forms a part of the ovipositor of this insect. And I am 
obliged to think the words mentioned have misled Mr. Curtis in 
the same manner they misled me; in consequence of which, 
although he had never seen this hair-like sting, he was induced 
to figure it as being an important part of the insect, not doubt¬ 
ing from Mr. Kirby's statement but that it belonged there. 
In justice to Mr. Kirby, however, I must add, that, since 
making my examination of this ovipositor, I have referred to 
the volume containing the illustrations with which his paper on 
this subject was originally accompanied, whereby I find his 
representation to be less erroneous than it appeared when I had 
only the words of his description before me. His figure of the 
ovipositor with the eggs passing through it, is not unlike the 
joints b and c of my fig. 16, except that the joint b is not repre¬ 
sented as being enlarged at its lower end, and the finger-like pro¬ 
cesses a are omitted. And by the aid of this figure we learn 
that what he terms the aculeus, is not a slender hair projecting 
from the end of the joint 6, as I had supposed from Mr. Curtis’s 
representation (fig. 15), but the joint b is itself the aculeus and 
the joint, c the vagina of Mr. Kirby’s description. But how could 
a careful observer like Mr. Kirby, and the peer.of any of us in 
scholarship and erudition, apply the term aculeus (*. e., a sting) 
to such a soft, flexile, bearded and blunt-pointed part as we find 
this to be, and say that it was as fine as a hair and very long! 
I think 1 see how this error has come. Mr. Kirby might well 
suppose the structure of this implement would be best shown 
when it was fully extruded and in operation, with the eggs pass¬ 
ing through it. He accordingly selected a fly which was in the 
act of depositing its eggs, and taking hold of it he carefully 
pulled it off from the wheat ear. But this terminal joint of the 
body, hid from view by being inserted in the crevice between 
two scales of the chaff, and adhering thereto by its bearded and 
prickly surface, only yielded to this force and was drawn out 
from the crevice as it became stretched, sleuder and elongated. 
Mr. Kirby, without a suspicion but that this was its natural 
form, described it accordingly. It was thus, I doubt not, that 
this error originated, whereby it has been universally supposed 
from that day till this, that the ovipositor of this insect was a 
long, fine, hair-like sting. 
Now that we know the instrument with which this fly deposits 
