THE AMERICAN WHEAT-FLY. 
597 
the winter.” On the 14th of August, 1841, she visited 
again the field of wheat where, on the 25th of July, she 
had found great numbers of the maggots, and observed 
that “ a very few of all that multitude were left. On rub- 
bing the ears, their silvery coverings glistened in the sun- 
shine, and floated away on the breeze. A warm rain had 
fallen between these visits.” 
In an account of the damage done by these insects in 
Vermont, in the summer of 1833, it is stated that, “after 
a shower of rain, they have been seen in such countless 
numbers on the beards of the wheat, as to give the whole 
field the color of the insect.”* Mr. Elijah Wood, of 
Winthrop, Maine, in a short communication, written in 
the summer of 1837, made the following remarks : “ This 
day, 9th of August, a warm rain is falling, and a neighbor 
of mine has brought me a head of wheat which has become 
loaded with the worms. They are crawling out from the 
husk or chaff of the grain, and were on the beards, and 
he says ho saw great numbers of them on the ground.” | 
From these observations, and from remarks to the same 
effect made to me by intelligent farmers, it appears that 
the descent of the insects is facilitated by falling rain and 
heavy dews. 
Having reached the ground, the maggots soon burrow 
under the surface, sometimes to the depth of about an inch, 
those of them that have not already moulted casting their 
skins before entering the earth. Here they remain, without 
further change, through the following winter. During the 
month of May, I have seen specimens still in the larva form, 
in the earth wherein they had been kept during the winter. 
It is not usually till June that they are transformed to pupae. 
This change is effected without another moulting of the skin ; 
not the slightest vestige of the larva-skin being found in the 
earth in which some of these insects had undergone their 
* New England Farmer, Vol. XII. p. 60. 
t Ibid., Vol. XVI. p. 61. 
