FRIT FLY. 61 



bare patches where Turnips have failed, or, again, 

 where a preceding crop may have been mowed so close 

 to the ground as to expose the ground to light and 

 warmth. There does not appear to be any record of 

 a summer brood being found of this Fly, which would 

 give, as in the case of the Gout Fly or Hessian Fly, 

 perfect insects in autumn to infest the young plants ; 

 and after digest of careful observations of several 

 years, there appears every reason to suppose that tli& 

 eggs of the Wheat-bulb Fly are laid in exposed land, 

 and that it is the maggots from these which infest the 

 autumn-sown Wheat. 



Here at once we have a clue to prevention. Do not 

 sow autumn wheat after bare fallow, or where ground 

 has been exposed during summer, in districts liable to- 

 this attack. Also it would be useful to plough with a 

 skim-coulter attached, so as to turn down the surface 

 of the land, and then bury it away so that the infes- 

 tation is not able to make its way up again. Deep 

 ploughing is a good preventive, but if the slices lie 

 hollow, then it does little or no good ; the eggs or 

 maggots are not much altered in situation, and when 

 they have gone through their changes, the perfect 

 insects may very likely be little lessened in number by 

 the treatment. The great point is to put the insect 

 vermin so deep down that it cannot come up of itself ; 

 nor yet be brought up again by succeeding measures 

 of cultivation. 



The two preceding attacks respectively affect (or 

 chiefly affect with us) Wheat and Barley ; but there is 

 another, that of the ** Frit Fly" {Oscinisfrit), which, 

 by reason of its maggots feeding in young Oat as well 

 as Wheat plants sometimes, as in 1888, does a deal of 

 mischief in this country. The young maggot injures- 

 the plant much in the same manner as the Wheat- 

 bulb maggot, and is very like it in general appearance. 

 The little Fly is rather under the eighth of an inch 

 long, and of a bright shining black. 



In this case we possibly have an example of what 



