THE BARLEY-STRAW INSECT. 
553 
when the grain is harvested. ‘ When the barley is threshed, 
numerous small pieces of diseased straw, too hard to be 
broken by the flail, Avill be found among the grain. Some 
of these may be separated by tlie winnowing-machine, but 
many others are too large and heavy to be winnowed out, 
and remain with the grain, from which they can only be 
removed by the slow process of picking them out by hand.' 
In the winter of 1829, Cheever Newhall, Esq., furnished 
me with a few pieces of diseased barley-straw, each of which 
contained several small whitish ma^ffots. Since that time 
OO 
this affection of the barley has only once, fallen under my 
notice, though I have .reason to think that it continues to 
prevail in many parts of Massachusetts. Each maggot was 
imbedded in the thickened and solid substance of the stem, 
in a little longitudinal hollow, of the shape of its own body ; 
and its presence was known by an oblong swelling upon the 
surface. In some pieces of straw the swellings were so 
numerous as greatly, to ..disfigure the stem, the circulation 
in which must have been very much checked, if not de¬ 
stroyed. Early in the following spring these maggots en¬ 
tered the pupa or chrysalis state, and on the 15th of June 
the perfected insects began to make their escape through 
minute perforations in the straw, which they gnawed for 
this purpose. Seven of these little holes ^ were counted in 
a piece of straw only half an inch in length. The insects 
continued to release themselves' from their confinement till 
the 5th of July, after which no more were seen. Much 
to my surprise, they proved to be minute, four-winged flies, 
belonging to the genus Eiirytoma. Supposing these insects 
to be parasites, in accordance with the known habits of 
others of the same familv, I described them as such, under 
the name of Earytoma Hordei (so called from Hordeum^ 
the Latin for barley), in the “New England Farmer,” for 
July 23, 1830,* and in the first edition of this work. It 
was then my belief that the true culprits, or original cause 
‘ ' * Vol. IX. p. 2. 
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