FRIT FLY. 37 
Frit Fly. Oscinis frit, L. 
Oscinis rrir.—F ly, much magnified; Oat-plant, with maggot within, and 
fly on leaf-blade, natural size. 
Frit Fly is probably always more or less present here, and if the 
signs of the attack were better known so that treatment could be given 
before the young Oat-plants were injured past all hope of recovery by 
the gnawings of the maggot within them, much good would be done. 
As it is, the young crop withering, or the growth failing towards the 
middle or end of June, is commonly what draws attention to mischief 
being present; and by the time that samples have been sent by the 
grower for information as to what is amiss, and the remedy has been 
learnt, and the requisite application has been procured, the time has 
most likely gone by in which treatment might have saved the crop. 
In this country the Frit Fly attack may be said to be scarcely half 
as injurious as it is in various parts of continental Europe, for it 
rarely is reported with us as injuring the ears or seed-heads, nor does 
it appear to extend its attacks to Barley, on which it occurs as well as 
Oats in various European countries, as France, Germany, and Bohemia, 
and to an especially mischievous extent in Sweden. 
The fly is two-winged, bright shiny black, and of the shape and 
size figured above, respectively, nat. size and mag.; and though now 
and then mischief is done by the maggots of the second brood feeding 
in the Oat-heads, the chief damage here is from it as an infestation to 
the young growing Oat-plants. 
The maggot feeds in the heart of the young plant. It is only about 
the eighth of an inch long, whitish, legless, cylindrical, with a strong 
pair of curved mouth-hooks in the bluntly pointed head end; and 
when much magnified will be seen to have a branched spiracle, or air- 
tube, projecting on each side near the head; and also two wart-like 
projecting spiracles at the blunt tail. 
