STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
821 
ITESSIAN FLY. EGGS. 
into October. On the 8th of October the fly was seen oviposit¬ 
ing in Eastern Pennsylvania, and it had wholly disappeared three 
days afterwards, (American Farmer, ii, 180.) The deposit is 
doubtless made later, to the south of us, than it is here in New 
York. 
The description which Mr. Tilghman gives, (Cultivator viii, 
82,) of his observations of the female when depositing her eggs, 
is so interesting that it merits to be presented in his own words. 
He says, ‘‘ By the second week of October, the first sown wheat 
being well up and having generally put forth its second and third 
blades, I resorted to my field to endeavor to satisfy myself by 
ocular demonstration, if I could do so, whether the fly did deposit 
the egg on the blades of the growing plant. Selecting what I 
deemed to be a favorable spot to make my observation, I placed 
myself in position, by reclining in a furrow between two wheat 
lands. It was a fine, warm, calm forenoon; and I had been on 
the watch but a minute or two, before I discovered a number of 
small black flies alighting and settling on the wheat plants around 
me; and so strong seemed to be their predilection for the wheat, 
that I did not observe a single fly to settle on any grass, or any¬ 
thing within my view, but the wheat. I could distinctly see 
their bodies in motion when settled on the leaves or blades of 
the wheat, and presently one alighted and settled on the ridged 
surface of a blade completely within my reach and distinct ob¬ 
servation. She immediately commenced disburthening her appa¬ 
rently well stored abdomen, by depositing her eggs in the longi¬ 
tudinal cavity between the little ridges of the blade. I could 
distinctly see the eggs ejected from a kind of tube or sting, or 
by the elongation of the body; the action of the insect in mak¬ 
ing the deposit being similar to that of the wasp in stinging. 
After she had deposited, as I supposed, some eight or ton eggs, 
I easily caught her, upon the blade, between my finger and 
thumb. * * * * After that, I continued my observations 
on the flies, caught several similarly occupied, and could see the 
eggs uniformly placed in the longitudinal cavities of the blades 
of the wheat; their appearance being that of minute reddish 
specks.” 
We obtain from Mr. Herrick’s account some valuable addi¬ 
tional information upon this same subject, with a very exact 
description of the eggs, as follows. “ The eggs are laid in the 
