Red Maggot
The name popularly given to small orange or lemon-coloured grubs, which are often to be found in the flowering-heads of grasses, between the glumes. They seem to feed on the juices or sap of the female part, or ovary, of each flower, and thereby prevent the formation of seeds. On cereals, e.g., Wheat, they are often very abundant, and do very great harm to the produce of the crops. The grubs are wrinkled into folds crosswise. They are not provided with feet, but can wriggle along freely; they do not exceed 1/12in. in length. When full-fed, they become orange pupae, either in the ear, or on falling to the ground, into which the larvae burrow before the change. From these pupae, small, two-winged flies--the Wheat-midges (Cecidomyia Tritici and Lasioptera obfuscata)--emerge in June and July. The former species is orange or dull yellow, with black eyes, and has the longest vein in each wing unbranched. The latter insect has the body blackish, and the longest vein in the wing is forked. The females lay eggs in the young spikelets of the cereals, by means of a long, flexible tube or ovipositor.
Remedies are required in farming only, as these Midges are hardly ever troublesome in gardens. It has been found very useful to plough so as to bury the surface sods 6in. or 7in. deep; and it is well to sow cereals so as not to ear when the Midges are on the wing. Burning stubble, chaff, &c., has been found of considerable service against them.