56 HOP. 



notes regarding them sent by Mr. W. Butt from the Estate Office at 

 Chelham Castle. At this date (the end of September), judging from 

 reports or samples sent me, the maggots were leaving the Hops ; and 

 Mr. Butt noted that some of the maggots would be found concealed in 

 the stem of the Hop, but that they were somewhat difficult to find. In 

 most of the Hops which he picked he could not discover one, although 

 it was easily seen that one had been in the Hop. He noted that in 

 two Hops he had found a couple of maggots in each, and in another 

 (forwarded) there were three, and that the maggots showed very 

 distinctly if they were turned out on white paper, they being of a 

 bright reddish orange colour, and likewise observed that he could not 

 feel certain as to whether "they could crawl from one Hop to another 

 or not." This is a rather important point, which could be ascertained 

 by observation earlier in the year, before the maggots were leaving the 

 Hop-cones for their winter-quarters. 



On the 30th of September, Mr. Edw. Goodwin, writing from Canon 

 Court, Wateringbury, Kent, forwarded me specimens of Hops which, 

 from the state of the centre of the cone, had evidently suffered from 

 attack of the Strig Maggot. Mr. Goodwin remarked, regarding this 

 attack of the " so-called Strig Maggot " : — " It seems only to appear in 

 very wet seasons ; last year it did a good deal of harm, but this year 

 the mischief caused by it is quite incalculable. I believe that a very 

 small insect lays its egg in the Hop during the early part of August ; 

 in a short time a pinky white larva appears, which lives by eating the 

 strig (i. e., stem or midrib), and the Hop withers from the point where 

 it has been attacked." 



Prevention and Eemedies. — As (so far as I am aware) there are 

 no published records, either of the nature or the name of this infesta- 

 tion or of measures to keep it in check, we can at present only rest for 

 guidance on such knowledge as is before us of the habits of the insect. 

 But, so far as we see at present, this maggot (like those of various 

 other kinds of Cecidojuym), when it is full fed, leaves its feeding place 

 and drops down to the ground, for its winter shelter, there to undergo 

 its changes, and from thence to come up again in the following summer, 

 in perfect state, to lay its eggs in the Hop-cones. 



We have clearly made out both that the maggots fall to the ground 

 and that they then bury themselves in the earth, from the following 

 very good observations reported to me on the 2Gth of September (in 

 reply to some remarks of my own) by Miss E. J. Stevens from Cobham, 

 near Gravesend : — " You are quite right in supposing that the maggots 

 fall from the Hops to the ground. The afternoon I received your letter 

 I spread some black lining under two of the Hop -hills, and the next 

 morning there were hundreds of maggots on it, jumping about. We 



