624 Prof. West w8®d on the minute Diptera 
Notes on Chlorops lineata by Isidore Pierre, with a 
report thereon by Milne-Edwards, appeared in the 
‘Comptes Rendus’ of the Academie of Paris for 1848. 
An article by the late Andrew Murray on Chlorops 
teniopus appeared in tbe ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1870, 
p- 1578. 
In the valuable series of articles published in the 
‘Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England’ 
by the late Mr. Curtis, subsequently republished in his 
fine volume, ‘ Farm Insects,’ Chapters viii. to x1., are de- 
voted to various insects injuring the corn crops. The 
memoirs of Bjerkander, Markwick, Herpin, Guérin- 
Meéneville, and Dagonet are abstracted, and an account 
of the mischief done by the insects figured by Olivier, 
and Guérin-Méneville, as C. lineata, and by myself as C. 
glabra, is given under the name of Chlorops teniopus, the 
writer doubting whether the insect is a variety of C. 
lineata, as supposed by Guerin. Mr. Curtis adds deserip- 
tions and figures of a very small black species of Oscinis, 
to which he gives the name of— 
Oscinis vastator (‘Farm Ins.,’ p. 2389). 
The larva is very small, and feeds in the stem of the 
wheat plants, and, on the 5th and 20th July, perfect 
flies were produced. ‘‘ This appears to be a much more 
formidable enemy than the Chlorops, for the ten or 
twelve stalks I opened were filled only with powder at the 
base, every portion of the young ear being consumed.” 
The length of O. vastator is three-quarters of a line, 
and the expansion of the wings two lines. It is shining 
greenish black, a large shining triangular space on the 
crown; face smooth and not concave, as in Chlorops ; 
thorax globose, quadrate, with a scarcely visible ochreous 
pile, forming. very indistinct lines in perfect specimens, 
and an impression on the disc; scutellum semi-ovate, 
terminated by two bristles, and finely rugose ; abdomen 
short, not so broad as the thorax, rather depressed, 
ovate-conic, and five-jointed; wings transparent and 
iridescent, but slightly smoky, the costal nervure extend- 
ing beyond the submarginal one to the mediastinal ner- 
vures ; all the nervures pitchy, the two transverse ones 
not very remote ; balancers with an oval ochreous club ; 
legs longish and slender; base and tips of the four 
anterior tibie ferruginous ; in the male the base of the 
first joint in all the tarsi is of the same colour. 
