802 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW YORK 
MIDGE. COCOONS. HOW LMIVJE WERE FOUND IN SPRING. 
decayed, probably from being overcrowded and smothered like 
the prisoners in the Black Hole of Calcutta. With a magnifying 
glass I then sought for some of their slimy remains, and soon 
detected what I felt'assured was one of these dead worms, faded 
and contracted to a little globule scarcely the size of a mustard 
Beed. I was now called off from this examination and on return¬ 
ing to it again a few days later I found the little globule had 
become dry and hard. Pressing upon it with the point of a 
needle it cracked asunder, showing inside the bright yellow larva 
of the wheat midge doubled and pressed compactly together into 
a little ball. The truth of the matter was now evident, and the 
interesting discovery was thus made, that these larvm inclose 
themselves in cocoons, they do not remain naked in the ground 
as 1 have all along supposed them to. Others of these minute 
cocoons were now found with the aid of the magnifying glass, on 
examining another fragment of earth taken from the vial. 
But if these larvae, soon after they descend from the wheat 
into the ground, inclose themselves in cocoons in which to repose 
through the winter and till they are ready to become flies the 
following June, how did I come to find larvae naked in the earth 
when the snows melted away in March ? We might suspect such 
larvm had been stung by parasites and thus rendered too weak 
and diseased to form cocoons; but as flies hatched from the major 
part of them we know this was not the case. Another casualty 
might retard them from forming cocoons. If on leaving the 
wheat they chanced to fall into a pool of water, we know*they 
would lie passive and quiescent therein, without perishing, for 
months or till the water dried away from them. They might 
thus remain in water from harvest time till cold weather arrived 
and further suspended their operations till the return of spring. 
But the soil of the spot where I found the larvae in question is 
so porous and sandy that I am quite sure no depressions in its 
surface could retain water but a brief time. And the most 
plausible conjecture I can form, whereby to account for the fact 
stated, is the following: Upon going to the spot where I met 
with these larvae, I discover it is but eight rods distant from the 
barn in which the midge infested wheat which grew on this 
ground was, housed and threshed. The screenings of the fanning 
mill weie doubtless made up in part of larvae which remained in 
the wheat ears at the time of harvest, and if these screenings 
