844 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW YORK 
black-legged barley-fly. the fly described. 
place. And ten years later, in the first edition of his Treatise 
(p. 436) he says, “Although the barley-fly has not yet been seen 
by me, there does not exist the smallest doubt in my mind that 
it is a two-winged gnat, like the Hessian fly.” Indeed, this was 
evidently the most intelligent and correct conclusion which he 
could form from all the evidence which he at that time had 
before him. 
Di. Hanis represents this insect to be “very much like the 
parasite of the Hessian fly.” The reader may judge of the simi¬ 
larity of these two insects by comparing the magnified figure, 
plate 1, fig. 1, with that of the Hessian fly parasite, plate 3, fig. 1. 
Although there are many points of resemblance, there are also 
obvious differences, which, however, become less observable in 
nature, in consequence of the minute size of these objects. In 
particular, the abdomen of the female barley fly has the elliptic 
form represented in the figure, but when viewed laterally, it has 
the egg-shaped form of the Hessian fly parasite’s abdomen,’ being, 
however, much more long and slender than in that insect. In 
the second edition of his Treatise Dr. Harris gives the following 
description of this barley fly. 
“The body is jet black and slightly hairy. The head and thorax are opake and rough with 
•dilated punctures. The hind body is smooth and polished. Tho thighs, shanks, and olaw- 
joints are blnckish; tho knees, and the other joints of tho feet are pale honey-yellow The 
females are twelve or thirteen-hundredths of an inch long. Tho males are rather smaller, 
and are distinguished from the females by the following characters. They have no piercer. 
The joints of their antenna) are longer, and aro surrounded by whorls of little hairs. The 
hind body is shorter, less pointed behind, and is connected with the thorax by a longer stem 
or peduncle. These insects are very active, and move by little leaps; but the hindmost 
thighs are not thickened.” 
To this description it should be added that on each side of tho neck is a dull whitish trans¬ 
verse spot. 
Although this insect was so numerous in Massachusetts at the 
period to which reference has been made, Dr. Harris, writing 
upwards of twenty years afterwards, informs us that since that 
time he had heard nothing more either of it or of the disease of 
the barley which it occasions. And in no other part of the 
country, down to this present time, has it shown itself in suffi¬ 
cient numbers to attract public notice. The following additional 
facts with respect to it are therefore important, indicating as 
they do that this depredator is still lurking in our country, and 
will no doubt at some future time become again so multiplied in 
some locality, as to seriously injure the barley crop. 
