592 
DIPTERA. 
appeared in “ The Genesee Farmer,” and in “ The Cul¬ 
tivator,” some of them written by the late Judge Buel, by 
whom, as well as by the editors of “ The Yankee Farm¬ 
er,” rewards were offered for the discovery of the means 
to prevent its ravages. Premiums have also been pro¬ 
posed, for the same end, by the Kennebec County Agri¬ 
cultural Society, in Maine, which were followed by the 
publication, in “ The Maine Farmer,” of three “ Essays on 
the Grain-Worm,” presented to that Society. These essays 
were reprinted in the seventeenth volume of the “ New 
England Farmer,” wherein, as well as in some other vol¬ 
umes of the same work, several other articles on this insect 
may be found. From these sources, and, more especially, 
from some interestino; letters wherewith I was favored in 
the years 1838 and 1841, by Mrs. N. G. Gage, formerly 
of Hopkinton, New Hampshire, the history of the wheat- 
fly in America, published in the first edition of this work, 
was chiefly derived. It will be found to contain a circum¬ 
stantial relation of the moulting of the maggot, a process 
which hitherto does not appear to have been understood in 
Europe, and which later writers on the history of the wheat- 
fly in this country have failed to describe. Personal obser¬ 
vations on this insect in Maine and New Hampshire, and 
in the western parts of Massachusetts and of Connecticut, 
together with information gathered there from intelligent 
farmers, confirm the general correctness of my former 
statements, and enable me to add thereto some further 
particulars. 
The American wheat-insect, which I have seen alive, in 
its winged form, in Maine and in New Hampshire, and 
which I have also reared from the larva, agrees exactly 
with the descriptions and figures of the European wheat- 
fly, or Ceeidomyia Tritici of Mr. Kirby. It is a very small 
orange-colored gnat, with long, slender, pale-yellow legs, 
and two transparent wings, reflecting the tints of the rain¬ 
bow, and fringed with delicate hairs. Its eyes are black 
