THE AMERICAN WHEAT-FLY. 
591 
(lifFerent parasites, which have been described by ]Mr. Kirby. 
An excellent summary of the history of this insect, illus¬ 
trated with figures, was published by Mr. Curtis, in the year 
1845, in the sixth volume of the “ Journal of the Royal 
Agricultural Society of England.” 
An insect, resemblino; the foreo:oinor in its destructive 
7 o o o 
habits, and known, in its maggot form, by the name of 
“ the grain-worm,” and “ the w^eevil,” has been observed, 
for several years, in the northern and eastern parts of the 
United States, and in Canada. It seems by some to have 
been mistaken for the grain-weevil, the Angoumois grain- 
moth, and the Hessian fly; and its history has been so 
confounded with that of another insect, also called the 
grain-worm, in some parts of the country, that it is diffi¬ 
cult to ascertain the amount of injury -done by either of 
them alone. The wheat-fly is said to have been first seen 
in America about the year 1828,* in the northern part of 
Vermont, and on the borders of Lower Canada. From 
these places its ravages have gradually extended, in vari¬ 
ous directions, from year to year. A considerable part of 
Upper Canada, of New York, New Hampshire, and of 
Massachusetts, have been visited by it; and, in 1834, it 
appeared in Maine, which it has traversed, in an easterly 
course, at the rate of twenty or thirty miles a year. The 
country over which it has spread has continued to suffer 
more or less from its alarming depredations, the loss by 
which has been found to vary from about one tenth part 
to nearly the Avhole of the annual crop of Avheat; nor has 
the insect entirely disappeared in any place, till it has been 
starved out by a change of agriculture, or by the substitu¬ 
tion of late-soAvn spring wffieat for the other varieties of 
grain. 
Many communications on this destructive insect have 
* Judge Buel’s Report in the Cultivator, Vol. VI. p. 26; and Nev/ England 
Farmer, Vol. IX. p. 42. Air. Jewett says, that its first appearance in Western 
Vermont occurred in 1820. See New England Farmer, Vol. XIX. p. 301. 
