STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
799 
UIDUB. LARVA. IT IS AMPHIBIOUS. 
larvae may always be seen to descend, when the surface of the 
straw is so heavily coated with dew-like particles as to enable 
them to'gather the moisture into a large drop. And it is its 
fondness for this mode of passing to the ground that appears to 
cause it to leave the ears in the greatest numbers in a heavy rain, 
when the wet gathered in the heads of the ■jvheat is every moment 
dripping down the straw in little rivulets, whereby all the worms 
which place themselves in the way are speedily carried to the 
earth. 
The astonishing vitality of this insect has already been adver¬ 
ted to. When a larva is but half grown, we have seen that 
though deprived of food it does not die, and though kept from 
moisture for many months it does not .dry up so as to perish. 
Thus no extremity of hunger or of thirst seems to have power 
to kill it. And we now come to show that water does not drown 
it. Heretofore it had occurred to me that where wheat was 
growing on stiff clay lands and a retentive soil, the same rains 
which bring the larvae out from the wheat ears would also form 
pools of water on the surface, into which many of the larvse 
would descend and would consequently be drowned. And among 
the possible remedies for this insect, I had thought of this : that 
if a wheat field after harvest could be flowed with water, like 
those in which rice is cultivated, the larvse in the ground might 
all be destroyed thereby. I am now aware this measure, were it 
practicable, would be both in its nature and its results a parallel 
to that whereby the sages of Gotham are reported to have essayed 
the destruction of an eel. For I find these larvae are perfectly 
amphibious and live as readily in water as out of it. My atten¬ 
tion was turned to this subject from noticing that a larva, crawl¬ 
ing about in a globule of water was so enveloped therein that it 
appeared impossible for it to be breathing the external air. I 
thereupon placed a large drop of water in its way, on coining to 
which, it was floated into its centre and there laid perfectly 
quiescent and without making any effort to crawl out. An hour 
later, 1 took it out and placed it on dry paper, whereupon it 
began to writhe and crawl away. I thereupon dropped it and 
also a cased larva into a vial of Water. Next day I could not 
distinguish the one from the other. Laying one of them upon 
paper I found it was alive, whereupon it was replaced in the 
■vial. Examining them in this same way occasionally, I found 
