EGGS OF THE HESSIAN FLY. 
573 
specks. My own mind being thus completely and fully 
satisfied as to the mode in which the egg was deposited, 
I proceeded directly to my dwelling, and put the plant 
with the eggs upon it in a large glass tumbler, adding a 
little water to the earth, and secured the vessel by cover- 
ing it with paper, so that no insect could get access to 
the interior. The paper was sufficiently perforated with 
pin-holes for the admission of air. The tumbler with its 
contents was daily watched by myself to discover the hatch- 
ing of the eggs. About the middle of the fifteenth day 
from the deposit of the eggs, I was so fortunate as to dis- 
cover a very small maggot or worm, of a reddish cast, 
making its way with considerable activity down the blade, 
and saw it till it disappeared between the blade and stem 
of the plant. This, I have no doubt, was the produce of 
one of the eggs, and would, I presume, have hatched 
much sooner, had the plant remained in the field. It was 
my intention to have carried on the experiment, by endeav- 
oring to hatch out the insect from the flax-seed state into 
the perfect fly again ; hut being called from home, the plant 
was suffered to perish. The fly that I caught on the blade 
of the wheat, as above stated, I enclosed in a letter to Mr. 
John S. Skinner, the editor of ‘ The American Farmer,’ of 
Baltimore, who pronounced it to be a genuine Hessian fly, 
and identical in appearance with others recently received 
from Virginia.” 
Dr. Chapman agrees with this writer in saying, that the 
Hessian fly lays her eggs in the small creases of the young 
leaves of the wheat. Mr. Havens states, that the fly lays 
her eggs on the leaves. In the fortieth number of “ The 
Connecticut Farmer’s, Gazette,” Mr. Herrick says : “ I have 
repeatedly, both in autumn and in spring, seen the Hessian 
fly in the act of depositing eggs on wheat, and have always 
found that she selects for this purpose the leaves of the 
young plant. The eggs arc laid in various numbers on 
the upper surface of the strap-shaped portion (or blade) 
