854 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW YORK 
WHEAT MIDGE. 
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTICE OP THE WHEAT MIDGE. 
THE FLIES OBSERVED, HATCHING IN OLD WHEAT FIELDS. 
Although it has heretofore been sufficiently certain that most 
of the flies of the wheat midge are hatched each year in the fields 
in which wheat was grown the year before, we have no record 
that any examination of these old wheat fields has ever been 
made, to discover whether these flies were really present in them. 
And in the history of this insect which I gave in my last report, 
in remarking upon the male flies, which have never been found 
except in a very few instances, I advanced the opinion that this 
sex was probably as numerous as the females ; that the sexes 
pair immediately after they come forth, and the males remain 
where they are born and do not accompany the females when the 
latter fly away in search of the new wheat fields; and that I was 
confident collectors of insects would readily supply themselves 
with specimens of the male flies by searching for them in the old 
instead of the new wheat fields. After having thus expressed 
this opinion, I of course became anxious to ascertain by actual 
observation whether what I had stated was correct. I accord¬ 
ingly have now made a special investigation of this subject. This 
investigation was so accurately conducted, and is of such an inter¬ 
esting nature, that it merits to be fully reported as an important 
addition to the history which I have given ot the wheat midge. 
I therefore present it in the words in which it is written in my 
diary. 
June 12, 1862. This is the day on which the flies of the wheat 
midge usually begin to appear. But the season, this year, is 
remarkably backward, cold and dry. Not a single hot sultry day 
have we yet had. And different plants, I have noticed, are a week or 
ten days later than their usual time, in flowering; and every kind 
of insect is equally tardy in making its first appearance. I there¬ 
fore do not expect the midge flies yet, for some days. But, to see 
how many of these flies will come out from a small space of ground, 
and how long new flies will continue to come forth, I to-day get 
ready for them. I go to Deacon L.’s field, in which the midge 
larvae were so plenty in the wheat heads last year, although lie 
had a tolerably satisfactory crop. The field is now overgrown 
