32 CORN AND GRASS. 



troublesome, and Chlorops or Gout Fly was little reported, although, 

 from notes placed in my hands by Mr. Edw. Blundell, Professor of 

 Agriculture at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, the Gout 

 Fly appears to have done considerable damage to Barley in some 

 localities. 



The Wheat-bulb maggot, however, was very noticeably present, as 

 enquiries regarding the attack began towards the end of April, were 

 forward on seventeen days of May, and continued to some slight extent 

 into June. The localities written from regarding the attack were, 

 with the exception of Gloucestershire, on the easterly side of England, 

 namely, from Essex, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshu'e, and 

 Durham. 



The following observations will be found to confirm those of pre- 

 ceding years, as to the attack of Wheat-bulb maggot being customarily 

 found (where it occurs at all) on land which has been fallowed, or 

 otherwise much exposed to the sun, in the preceding summer. Details 

 of various points are also given by various observers, which, by 

 collating them together, appear to point strongly to this attack being 

 set on foot by maggots from eggs deposited before the time of autumn 

 Wheat-sowing on the exposed land. These points are brought for- 

 ward for consideration together, in the "summary" following the 

 observers' notes. 



On the 28th of April specimens of infested Wheat were sent me 

 from Cottenham, Cambs., with the remark, by Mr. Robt. Norman, the 

 sender, that he had known hundreds of acres ruined by the maggot. 

 On the same day also specimens were sent by Mr. J. Hunt from Coton, 

 as being of an attack previously unknown in the district, and that the 

 maggots " entirely destroy the plant, and leave the field bare." 



On the 5th of May, Miss M. F. Curtis Hayward, writing from 

 Quedgeley, near Gloucester, observed of this same attack : — " We have 

 a field of Wheat that has failed, and died off after coming up at first 

 strong and well. The stems, a little way above the root, appear to 

 have decayed, as if they had been attacked by some pest." The grub 

 taken from one of these stems, and sent as a sample, proved to be of 

 the H. coarctata, and a few days later Miss Curtis Hayward further 

 noted : — " Since writing, we have heard of several instances, in the 

 neighbourhood, of Wheat attacked in the same way as our own, and no 

 doubt by the Wheat-bulb maggot. One farmer has lost ten acres out 

 of forty." 



The following note, sent me on the 18th of May, by Mr. S. G. 

 Jones, from Hatherleigh Court, near Gloucester, is of much interest ; 

 first, in showing that we are in no way benefited by the severe cold of 

 last winter in getting rid of these maggots ; and next, in confirming 

 previous observation as to the great influence exercised by previous 



