STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
797 
H1DOE. LARVA. ITS MODES OF DK8CySDISO. 
which go into the ground before harvest that live and produce 
the flies of the following year; and that those larvse which 
remain in the wheat ears and are carried into the barn become 
dried and dead if the grain is not threshed until winter. This 
opinion is probably derived from the dried, shrunken, hard and 
motionless appearance of the larvae which they see upon the 
threshing floor. It was one leading object of the experiment 
above reported, to obtain some evidence upon this important point. 
And it will be noticed that those wheat heads which had been 
kept perfectly dry for nearly three months gave out about the 
same number of live larvrn as those which had been occasionally 
wetted; indicating that none had perished from being dried 
three months, and that few if any therefore would be dead, 
probably, at the end of six months. 
Upon the soft young kernels the larvae grow to their full size 
in about three weeks. When the kernels are becoming dry and 
hard they will bo longer in feeding upon them. I have seen these 
larvae matured and descending to the ground as early as the 
eleventh of July, some of the parent flies being still at work depo¬ 
siting their eggs in the ears from which these larvae were coming. 
There are three different modes by which it passes from the 
wheat ears to the ground, viz., 1st, by jumping down ; 2d, by 
crawling, and 3d, by riding down. 
1st. By jumping. Some of them crawl out upon the beards 
and with a skip throw themselves thence to the earth. I have 
not seen it descending thus, sufficiently often to speak with con¬ 
fidence as to the circumstances which induce it to resort to this 
mode. It appears to bo when the heads are overcrowded and no 
rain occurring to enable them to crawl down the straw, that, if a 
moderate sprinkling rain or a mist comes on, it suffices to enable 
a portion of them to crawl out upon the beards and skip from 
thence in the manner stated. 
2d. By crawling down. When a rain drenches the straw with 
moisture, causing its surface to be covered with small particles 
like a heavy dew resting thereon, whereby the worm as it crawls 
downward is kept wet and enveloped in a pellicle of water, it 
readily adhores to the straw, as it cannot do when the straw i 3 
dry ; and by alternately contracting and elongating itself as has 
heretofore been described, it moves down the surface of the 
straw with the utmost facility. And this is the mode in which 
we usually see it making its descent. 
