78 
THE MEADOW MAGGOTS OR LEATHER-JACKETS. 
(Tipula bicornis, Loew, MSS., et al.) 
Order Diptera. Family Tipulim. 
(Plate VI., fig-4.) 
Few can have failed to notice frequently the large slender¬ 
bodied, pale brown flies with excessively long and slender legs, 
abundant on grass lands in early summer, and very generally 
known in America as crane-flies ; but larv8B of these insects are 
much less frequently seen, and have received practically no at¬ 
tention in this country from economic entomologists. By Harris, 
for example, the Tipulidse are not mentioned in his standard work 
011 “Insects Injurious to Vegetation.” In the Missouri Reports* 
they are barely referred to as “underground vegetable-feeding 
larvae.” In the Reports of the State Entomologists of Illinois they 
have been mentioned only by Thomas, and by him were not con¬ 
sidered as injurious. In Lintner’s Reports as State Entomologist 
of New York they are barely noticed. In Packard’s “Guide to 
the Study of Insects” they are treated only in a general way, and 
the larvae of the principal genus, Tipula, are said to live in gar¬ 
den mold and under moss in fields and woods. In the writings 
of the U. S. Entomologists, they are referred to only by Glover, 
who briefly discusses the habits of some of the European species. 
“In this country, however,” he adds, “we do not appear to suffer 
so much from these insects as in England, where the climate is 
more moist and the frost is not severe as with us; and probably, 
also, our hot, dry summers are not so favorable for their in¬ 
crease.”! In the “Prairie Farmer” of Chicago for April 6, 1867, is 
a brief article on larvae of Tipulidae (“Meadow. Worms”) by Dr. 
Riley, written in response to an inquiry concerning large numbers 
of these larvae found crawling upon snow in a meadow. “Thou¬ 
sands of them could have been picked up on a rod square.” 
Riley here says that “they may always be found in large num¬ 
bers” in the fall of the year in the humid grounds of meadows, 
where they remain a couple of inches below the surface feeding 
upon the vegetable portions of the soil, as also upon the roots ofi 
grass. Their numbers are, at times, so immense that they do 
* 2d Rep., p. 132. 
t Rep. Com. Agr. 1872, p. 128. 
