. Insect pests of farm, garden and orchard . rged.(After Webster, U. S. Dept. Agr.) If the seed crop is short it will ho well to examine seed for thelarvte; many of the seed will be found shriveled and misshapen;and frequently consideral)lc numbers of the adults will issue fromthe seed soon after threshing. * BrucJtophagus funebris Howard. Family ChalcididcB. INSECTS INJURIOUS TO CLOVER 215 The adult is a small wasp-like fly one-twelfth to one-sixteenthinch long, black in color, and with four wings, the hind-wings verysmall and the fore-wings with but a single vein. It belongs to afamily almos
. Insect pests of farm, garden and orchard . rged.(After Webster, U. S. Dept. Agr.) If the seed crop is short it will ho well to examine seed for thelarvte; many of the seed will be found shriveled and misshapen;and frequently consideral)lc numbers of the adults will issue fromthe seed soon after threshing. * BrucJtophagus funebris Howard. Family ChalcididcB. INSECTS INJURIOUS TO CLOVER 215 The adult is a small wasp-like fly one-twelfth to one-sixteenthinch long, black in color, and with four wings, the hind-wings verysmall and the fore-wings with but a single vein. It belongs to afamily almost all of which are parasitic on other insects, and formany years it was thought to be a parasite of the clover-seedmidge, until its true role was discovered. In recent years exam-inations of ripening heads from all parts of the country show thatit is probably distributed wherever clover is grown and that from20 to 80 per cent of the seed is often destroyed. Both red andcrimson clovers are attacked, while alfalfa seed is not so Fig. 154.—The clover-seed chalcis: a, egg—highly magnified; b, larvaand head more enlarged; c, pupa—much enlarged. (After Webster,U. S. Dept. Agr.) Life History.—The winter is passed by the fully grown larvsein seed on the ground. The adults emerge in the spring, the maxi-mum appearing al^out June 10th in central Illinois, according toDr. Folsom, to whom we are indebted for the most careful stud}of the pest. The females deposit their eggs in the soft seed, justas the floret is withering, being unal^le to penetrate the seed afterit has hardened. The egg is whitish, about y-J-^^ inch long, andwith a peculiar tail-like appendage (Fig. 154). The maggot-likelarva feeds upon the seed, gradualh hollowing it out, and Mhen fullgrown is about one-twelfth inch long, stout and footless, with asmall head. The pupal stage is passed within the seed and a sec-ond generation of adults emerges about the middle of August. 216 INSECT PESTS OF FARM, GAR
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