136 
TARES. 
second occasion, though the first time I sent them, which was hut a 
few days previously, I had about an equal difficulty to find them free.” 
This observation points to the maggots going down into the earth for 
their changes ; and also, Mr. Hamlin observed, when some of the Tare 
heads were laid on earth, that these (and other maggots from the 
heads) went down into the soil. Mr. Hamlin also remarked “ that 
the infestation started from the hedgerows.” 
In Curtis’ ‘ Farm Insects,’ at p. 487, the author observes, under 
the head of Tares :—“ In July the flower heads are often distinctly 
distorted, and on opening them numbers of maggots are found 
concealed in and amongst the calyces, or cups of the flowers, where 
they eat into the base, and entirely consume the incipient pod. 
These little larvae are 1 line long, of an orange colour, tapering to the 
head, and blunt at the tail. In all probability they are the offspring 
of some species of Cecidomyia allied to the Wheat Midge.” 
Turning now to the short notes given by Bergenstamm and Paul 
Low of various species of Cecidomyia of which the method of life of the 
larvae is known, but of which the perfect insects (up to date of 
publication) were still unknown and undescribed, I find four kinds 
recorded as (respectively) causing deformed growth of the inflorescence, 
the leaves, or the shoots of various species of Vetch, one of these being 
the Vida sativa, the Tare. Of one kind it is noted (No. 597, p. 98), 
“ The larvae live in deformed blossoms of Vida sativa and cracca, L.,” 
and the suggestion is added that perhaps it is identical with the 
Diplosis loti, Deg. As neither Mr. Hamlin nor myself succeeded in 
rearing the perfect Gnat Midge from our Cecidomyia maggots, we 
cannot at present form any opinion as to the species of these larvae. 
The above infestation may prove (when we can procure full details) 
to be the cause of part of the mischief; but there was another kind 
reported to be sometimes present, which probably had to do with 
the matter, thus noticed by Mr. Hamlin:—“ We are also troubled 
occasionally with a maggot that is found in the Tare pods, which 
develops into what we term ‘a bug’ with wings, having a sharp snout 
‘ similar to a mole.’ ” This short description corresponds, so far as it 
goes, with that given by Curtis of the attack of the Apion pomonce, one 
of the long-snouted weevils, figured at p. 134. 
Of this John Curtis says that at “ the end of July, 1847, I found 
in a field of Tares or Vetches (Vida sativa), left for seed and partly 
ripe, a great number of the pods, which were more or less distorted. 
On opening them I found the seeds partially eaten, some with only a 
hole in them, surrounded by abundance of brown and white excrement; 
other seeds were hollowed out, and a cell formed in each of them of an 
oval form, but irregular; in these cells was either a fat maggot or a 
pale ochreous pupa, which I at once saw was that of some weevil. On 
