V0LU3IE V OCTOBEll, 1918 No. '2 



A SHOPvT SUMMARY OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF 



THE frit-fi:y. 



By .1. E. COLLIN, F.E.8. 



[Food Prod (1(1 ion Deporhneyil.) 



Communicaled bij Mr J . C. F. Fryer. 



The fact that very extensive damage to corn crops throughout Northern 

 and Central Europe may be the work of the frit-fly has been recognised 

 for the past century and a half, the first record being published by 

 Linne in 1750, but in the British Isles it is in onl}^ comparatively recent 

 years that public .attention has been directed to the losses caused by 

 these depredations, though in many parts of the country the crops 

 (especially of oats) are always liable to be attacked, and in some years 

 the damage done is enormous. 



A very large amount of literature on the subject has been published, 

 chiefly continental, and much of it appears in periodicals or reports 

 of only a limited circulation. In the following pages an attempt is made 

 to collate all the more important facts concerning the frit-fly contained 

 in such of this literature as has been accessible, with a view to arriving 

 at some idea of what has been discovered up to the present time of the 

 life history, and methods of combating the attacks, of this destructive 

 little insect. Much of the information contained in Russian publications 

 has been extracted from The Review of Apfhed Entor)io]ogf/. 



On the Continent two species of Oscinis (0. frit and 0. pusilla) are 

 considered to be responsible for frit-fly attacks, but as the 0. fiisilla 

 Meig. which several economic entomologists have professed to recognise 

 is certainly not the form or species described by Meigen under that 

 name, and as most authorities of the present day on Diptera consider 

 fKfrit to be a species exhibiting very considerable variation in the colour 

 of its legs and in its size, reference to any such varieties (including 

 0. pusilla) are incorporated in the present summary. 



Ann. Biol, v 



