36 
may be found feeding on the tissues of the stem from the middle 
of June to the first of August, by which latter date all have 
pupated and most have transformed to winged flies. These have 
been seen to emerge from the pupa at intervals from July 4 to 
August 5, and, in all probability, then remain in waiting for an 
opportunity to lay their eggs on the earliest wheat to appear.” 
A brief note in the Report for the following year (1884) p. 54, 
confirms the above account by mention of the occurrence of half- 
grown larvae in rye October 31. It is now rendered probable, how¬ 
ever, that these larvae were descendants of an earlier brood by 
which the same rye had been infested, the field in which these 
occurred having been sown for pasture July 9. At any rate the 
observations of the present year in experimental wheat sown for 
the study of the life history of the Hessian fly, show unques¬ 
tionably the existence of an additional brood in volunteer wheat 
in August and September, the corresponding stages of this insect 
occurring side by side with those of the Hessian fly, or possibly, 
on an average, somewhat earlier. 
The inference of an additional brood was first announced in a 
paper read by me August, 1886, before the Entomological Club of 
the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a brief 
abstract of which was printed in the “Canadian Entomologist” for 
September, 1886. The same fact was also stated in a paper on 
“Entomological Progress in Illinois,” printed in the “Prairie 
Farmer” for November 13, 1886. 
My first notes of the year on this subject were made August 4, 
as the result of a visit to an experimental wheat plot sown July 
13, at Billett Station, in Lawrence county. This wheat had 
sprung up finely and was at that date from one to four inches 
high. About a week earlier, the owner had noticed that it had 
ceased growing, or was even dwindling away, and now from one 
half to two thirds of it was dead, many of the plants entirely 
gone, and others with the central leaf withered and the growth of 
the plant arrested. The base of this dead leaf was always gnawed 
or eaten within the sheath, and in every case where the author 
of this mischief could be found (probably in about ten per cent, 
of the damaged plants) it proved to be the larva cf Meromyza, 
varying from half size to full grown. On a single leaf the eggs 
of the species were found still unhatched. Additional larvse, now 
full grown, were obtained from this field September 3. By the 5th 
September most of these had formed puparia, and the flies 
emerged September 28. From other larvse obtained September 11, no 
Meromyza imagos were bred, but several of the commonest parasites 
of the species, Codinius meromyzee , Forbes, appeared in the breed¬ 
ing cage about two weeks later. 
From a plot of wheat sown at Edgewood, August 5, the larvse 
were obtained on the 22d September, and a single adult Meromyza 
resulted October 22. Larvse of this brood (orpossibly the next) con¬ 
tinued to appear in small numbers in our collections until the 
