552 
HYMEN OPT ERA. 
given up in consequence thereof. It was supposed that the 
insects producing this disease were imported from Bremen, 
or some other port in the North of Europe, in some barley 
that was sown in the vicinity of Newbury, three or four 
years before 1820.* The worms or maggots were found, 
by John M. Gourgas, Esq., of Weston, Massachusetts, to 
be transformed to small flies, “ about the make and size of 
a small black ant, with wings,” which were thought, by 
some persons, to be the same as the Hessian flics. 
In the summer of 1831, myriads of these flies were 
found alive in straw beds in Gloucester: the straw havincr 
' O 
been taken from the fields the year before. An opinion 
at that time prevailed, that the troublesome humors where- 
with many persons were then afflicted were occasioned by 
the bites of these flies ; and it is stated that the straw beds 
in Lexington, being found to be infested with the same 
insects, were generally burnt.f Mr. Gourgas observes, | 
that when the barley is about eight or ten inches high, 
the effects of the disease in it begin to be visible by a 
sudden check in the growth of the plants, and the yellow 
color of their lower leaves. If the huts of the straw are 
now examined, they will be found to be irregularly swollen, 
and discolored, between the second and third joints, and, 
instead of being hollow, are rendered solid, hard, and 
brittle, so that the stem above the diseased part is impov- 
erished, and seldom produces any grain. Suckers, how- 
ever, shoot out below, and afterwards yield a partial crop, 
seldom exceeding one half the usual quantity of grain. 
Dr. Andrew Nichols, of Danvers, states, § that the worms 
are about one tenth of an inch in length, and of a yellow 
or straw color; and that, in the month of November, they 
appeared to have passed to the chrysalis state. They live 
through the winter unchanged in the straw, many of them 
in the stubble in the field, while others are carried away 
* New Englund Farmer, Vol. VIII. p. 217. 
t Ibid., Vol. X. p. 11. 
t Ibid., Vol. VIII. p. 299. 
§ Ibid., p. 138. 
