CORNFLAG. 
dry grass in little grassy hollows. Its eggs are 
about the size of those of the partridge, and have 
a yellowish-white colour, marked with dull rust- 
coloured spots; and its young are covered with 
a black down, and run as soon as they leave the 
shell, and become able in six weeks to fly, but 
seldom quit the meadow till the scythe destroys 
or lays bare their habitation. The flesh of the 
corn-crake is esteemed a great delicacy; and the 
bird is, in consequence, an object of much interest 
to both the sportsman and the mower. In the 
island of Cyprus, corn-crakes and partridges have 
twenty-four times the market value of beccaficos 
and ortolans, and are exceeded in value only by 
snipes; and all other birds, both aquatic and 
terrestrial, are there so cheap that they are rather 
given away than sold. 
-CORN-CROWFOOT. See Crowroor. 
CORN-CUTTING MACHINES. See Ruapina 
MAcHINES. 
CORNEA. See Eye. 
CORNEL and CORNELIAN CHERRY. See 
Dogwoop. 
CORNFLAG,—botanically Gladiolus communis. 
A weedy, hardy, and vivacious plant of the tuber- 
ous-rooted and magnificently flowering genus gla- 
diolus, The name cornflag, indeed, is, in a dese- 
crating sort of way, applied by some writers to 
the whole of that superb genus; but it cannot, 
with any propriety, be extended farther than to 
the common species. This plant grows naturally 
in the arable fields of the south of Europe; and 
though not introduced to Britain till about the 
end of the 16th century, it became, so far back 
as nearly an hundred years ago, a wide-spread 
and exceedingly troublesome weed of many Brit- 
ish gardens. Its root is tuberous, compressed, 
and yellowish, has a brown furrowed skin like 
that of the yellow vernal crocus, and is so viva- 
cious and fecund that, when once established in 
a piece of ground, it cannot without much diffi- 
culty be eradicated ; two flat, stiff, sword-shaped 
leaves, rise from the root, embrace each other at 
the base, have an enveloping sheath of one or 
two narrow leaves round their lower part, and 
grow to the height of about two feet; the flower- 
stem rises between these leaves, and bears the 
flowers on one side of its upper part; the flowers 
are five or six in number, project in a series from 
the side of the stem, have a purplish red colour, 
appear in June and July, and, though monope- 
talous, are so deeply cut into six segments as to 
appear like flowers of six variously spreading 
petals. Two varieties of this plant long ago 
sprang up and spread in Britain,—the one with 
white flowers, and the other with flesh-coloured 
flowers. Whenever cornflag gets fairly hold of a 
garden or a field, it contends as sturdily as colt’s- 
foot against all ordinary efforts for its extirpa- 
tion. See the article Cour’s-Foor. 
CORN-MARIGOLD. See CurysantHEemuM. 
CORN-MARKET. A\market-town in which 
farmers sell their corn to bakers, millers, brewers, 
3 
CORN-MOTH. 869 
distillers, and corn-merchants. A sample market 
for corn is one in which farmers show only hand 
samples of their commodity, and engage to pur- 
chasers to deliver the stock at appointed place 
and time ; and a stock-market for corn is one in 
which farmers exhibit on their carts all the stock 
which they are prepared to sell, and which they 
deliver to purchasers as soon as it is sold. Cer- 
tain disadvantages and inconveniences encumber 
each of the two kinds of market; but those 
which encumber the sample market are the 
easiest for both farmer and purchaser. Corn- 
market is sometimes understood aggregately, or 
as comprehending the whole of the corn-trade. 
CORN-MEASURES. See BusHet. 
CORN-MINT. See Minv. 
CORN-MOTH, or Corn-Wormu,—scientifically 
Tinea granella. A mischievous, corn-eating, le- 
pidopterous insect, of the teneidee family of moths. 
It sometimes attacks corn while in the sheaf, but 
principally infests granaries ; it feeds on all sorts 
of grain, but is most partial to wheat ; it has long 
made great devastations among corn in France; 
and though not as yet so far diffused or so mis- | 
chievous in Britain as to excite any immediate | 
apprehension, it possesses instincts and habits 
which ought to be known to all farmers, and | 
which may become matter of serious practical 
study to some. 
not exceed half an inch in length; its wings, 
when laid over each other, slope at the sides; its 
upper wings have nearly an uniform breadth, and 
are whitish-coloured, with dark brown and dusky 
spots; its body is brown, variegated with white ; | 
and its head has a thick tuft of yellowish-white 
hairs. Thirty eggs or upwards are laid by each 
female,—all so minute as to be scarcely observ- | 
able by the naked eye; and one or two are at- 
tached to a single grain of corn. The young larva 
or caterpillar is speedily hatched ; it immediately 
bores its way into the grain, closes up the open- 
ing by which it entered, and remains in the in- 
terior till it eats up everything but the husk ; it 
then passes into another grain, to repeat the 
same process,—and into another and another till 
it becomes full-grown; it glues together all the 
grains which it has used, and tracks all the path 
over which it passes, with a silken and somewhat 
excrementitious web; and when full-grown, it 
leaves the chain of emptied grains on which it 
fed, and runs athwart all the neighbouring corn, 
covering it more or less with greyish-white webs. 
The full-grown caterpillar is about half an inch 
long, and has 16 feet; and its body is yellowish- 
white, its head brownish-red, and its neck marked 
with two transverse brown stripes. When run- 
ning athwart the corn, it is in search of a retreat 
for transmutation into a chrysalis; and, in almost 
any barn or granary, it will readily enough find 
such a retreat in some little crack or crevice of 
the floor, the walls, or the roof. The state of 
chrysalis or of envelopment with cocoon is of long 
duration, usually continuing through the whole 
The imago or perfect moth does | 
