STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
801 
MIDOE. COCOOKS. MOW FIKST DISOOTERKD. 
assured that my views upon this subject were correct, as he has 
stated in the second edition of his Treatise on Injurious Insects, 
page 451. 
But, as I was aware it was contrary to all previous observa¬ 
tions for the larva skin of an insect to become its pupa skin, I 
have been most anxious to disinter these larvae of the wheat 
midge again, early in the spring, that I might closely inspect 
them from that time onwards till they became flies, and thus cor¬ 
rect my views if I was in error, or confirm them if correct. I 
accordingly have sought for these doruiant larva} in the earth of 
old wheat fields, faithfully and perseveringly. In repeated in¬ 
stances I have noticed the places where, at and beforo harvest, 
immense numbers of them descended to the ground, and have 
repaired to the same spots the following spring and with a pen¬ 
knife blade carefully scraped and searched the surface of the 
ground, assured that there must be multitudes of these yellow 
worms lurking somewhere there, yet not one of them could I find. 
And for many years past it has been a mystery to me how I came 
to discover these larvae in the ground the first time I ever 
searched for them, and yet could never meet with them in the 
same situation again. 
Being thus unsuccessful, I have latterly been endeavoring to 
follow these larvae from the time they enter the ground, and thus 
ascertain what became of them that I could not find them in the 
spring. But my experiments hitherto have failed, for want as I 
have supposed of suitable care in conducting them when my 
attention was principally required in other directions. Larvae 
buried in the dirt in flower pots and in vials I have been unable 
to find afterwards. Finally, that I might have them in a space 
so narrow that they could not elude detection, the eighty-four 
first larvae already mentioned as having come from ten wheat 
heads in August and September, were placed in a small vial, 
having moist earth in its bottom to the depth of half an inch, in 
which they all soon disappeared. Four weeks afterwards, on the 
eighth of October, upon examining portions of the earth taken from 
this vial, I could find none of* these yellow larvaj in it. So totally 
had all traces of them vanished that the conclusion became 
strongly impressed on my mind, that the largo number .which I 
had placed in this small lump of earth had all perished and 
[Ag. Trans.] «51 
