J. E. C<»LMX 89 



"Oats drilled Apiil 1st on late folded land, threshed in August and 

 found very light in weight (32 lbs. ])er bushel). Innunieiable Hies 

 swarmed a few days later in gj'anary where corn was stoi'ed" (England. 

 Theobald, 1906). 



"Large numbers of flies bied IVom store of threshed pats at Poltava " 

 (Russia, Vassiliev. 1908). 



"In swarms in an outbuilding this autumn (1881), in the lofts of 

 which newly threshed barley had been stored"' (Meade in lift. 1881, 

 Ormerod, Report for 1881). 



"Found in great numbers in a loft in Dorsetshire where liarley had 

 been stored" (Fitch, Proc. Ent. Sac. Lond. 1881). 



"A number of these little flies were sent to me some years ago by the 

 Rev. 0. Pickard-Cambridge, which he had found in a granary in Dorset- 

 shire in which (I think he said) barley had been stored"" (Meade, Ent. 

 M. Mag. 1899, p. 103). It is possible that these three last references 

 refer to one and the same case. 



SYNONYMS AND VARIETIES. 



The original description of Oscinis frit was made from specimens 

 breil from the ears of barley. Musca hordci Bjerk. was bred from rye 

 and subsequently considered by Bjerkander himself to be a synonym 

 of frit. Musca a venae Bjerk. was bred from the stems and panicles of 

 oats. Oscinis ras'ator Curtis from young wheat plants sent to Curtis 

 towards the end of June. Oscinis granarivs Curtis was bred from a 

 grain of wheat. Of these granarius was distinguished by Curtis by having 

 the tibiae black with only the tip of the intermediate tibiae (front pair 

 missing in type specimen) yellowish, 0. vastatnr by having the base as 

 well as the tip of the four anterior tibiae ferrugineous. Specimens bred 

 from oats threshed early and stored in a loft were described by Westwood 

 as having the legs uniformly black, and these he considered to be identical 

 with avenae Bjerk. and atriciUa Zett. Oscinis pusilla Mg. has been 

 recorded as living in cereal crops, but the 0. pusiJla of Wilhelm which 

 he called the "Oat-fly" and which attacked the oats in the panicles in 

 its summer generation, and was described bv him as having the tibiae 

 of only the front legs a little paler, the others dark as the femora, is 

 certainly not the same species as Meigen's. True 0. pusilla Mg. has the 

 four anterior tibiae entirely yellowish 



Very little information is available as to whether different varieties 

 are responsible for the attack on different plants or different parts of the 

 same plant; the variety jmsilla, however, has been noted by different 



