STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
845 
YELLOW-LEGGED BARLEY-FLY. IN CENTRAL NEW YORK. 
On examining the several insects which I had collected May 
23d, 1861, in a rye field at Salem, N. Y., by sweeping over the 
young grain with a net, one was discovered which I identified as 
being a female of this Massachusetts barley fly. Thereupon 
repairing again to the same field four days afterwards, on a 
careful search several more of the same insects were found ; and 
returning to the same hunt again, June 5th, three males of this 
species were obtained. We hereby learn the date when these 
flies are naturally abroad to deposit their eggs. Those obtained 
by Dr. Harris, it hence appears, were delayed in coming out, in 
consequence of the artificial conditions under which they were 
placed. 
This rye field was inspected a few weeks after and again at 
harvest time, but none of the stalks were discovered bent or 
swollen at their lower joints. It would hence seem that this 
insect was present in this grain merely for the purpose of exam¬ 
ining it, and finding it was unsuited to its wants it forsook it and 
went elsewhere to deposit its eggs. 
10. Yellow-legged barley-fly, Eurytoma flavipcs, Fitch. (Hymenoptera. Chalcididos.) 
In barley, the stalks diseased in the same manner as by tho preceding insect, and the 
maggots therein producing similar flies, but having tho legs and also the tip of tho body. 
bright tawny yellow. 
Central New York, it is generally known, is the great barley¬ 
growing district of this country. And in this crop the county of 
Onondaga takes precedence of all others, it producing, according 
to the census of 1850, nearly a third more than any other county 
in the State, and surpassing the total amount yielded by Ohio, 
the state which ranks next to New York in this crop. But all 
through Central New York there has been a great change, a 
great diminution of the barley crop within the last ten years. 
Hon. George Geddcs, President of the State Agricultural Society, 
in his survey of Onondaga, informs us (transactions, 1859, p. 
332) “ Formerly we expected forty bushels to the acre; now we 
cannot rely on more than twenty.” And he goes on to state that 
“This falling off is principally due to the depredations of an in¬ 
sect, described by Dr. Fitch in the Journal of our Society of 
April 1859, and named the Yellow-legged or New York barley- 
fly. Unless some relief from it is found, we must entirely dis¬ 
continue raising this crop, and henceforth barley will hardly 
appear in our census reports.” 
