Reports of Consulting Entomologist. 
411 
active health present. I noted the general characteristics of these, 
and forwarded specimens to Dr. Ritzema Bos, as the most skilled 
referee on this kind of attack, and he will be good enough to inves- 
tigate the matter fully as soon as his time permits. At present 
the disease appears to him, as well as to myself, to be undescribed, 
and though many eel worms are present, there is a possibility that 
the disease may be fungoid. 
Meanwhile, I am cautioning the fruit-grower on the necessity of 
great care in not allowing the infestation to spread, especially as to 
burning any plants that are destroyed, not carting them to a com- 
post heap, for the establishment of such a virulent attack would be 
a real calamity to strawberry growers. 
Maggot of the Wheat Bulb Fly. 
Regarding crop attacks, the most important that is being reported 
at present is that of the maggot of the wheat bulb fly, the Hylemyia 
coarctata. This is again destructive in various places by means of 
the little white legless maggot feeding low down in the centre of the 
wheat plant, and thus destroying the shoot above it. I am trying 
to induce correspondents to observe in the summer whether the 
maggots of the next brood will be noticeable in the young shoots of 
' couch grass ' on fallow or partly bare land. The attack is for the 
most part on land fallowed in the previous year, and it is a serious 
one. If we could ascertain the above point we should be able to 
check it. 
At present, the best treatment I am aole to suggest is to apply 
a stimulating dressing to the infested wheat, which may help on 
side shoots of injured plants so as to ripen their heads in time for 
the harvest of the uninfested plants. The application can best be 
judged of by the owner, but I am suggesting guano and salt mixed, 
because wheat having a power of imbibing salt until the plant tastes 
strongly of it, this application added to the guano would be likely to 
be very detrimental to such of the young wheat bulb maggots as are 
still feeding in the stems. 
Winter Habitat of Chlorops ta>niopus. 
From notes and specimens placed in my hands by Mr. White- 
head, I learn that he has been fortunate enough to secure examples, 
sent to him from Downton by Dr. Fream, of the much-needed ob- 
servation of how Cldorops tte?iiopits (the fly which causes the very 
bad attack known as gout in barley) passes the winter. 
It was well known in Germany that the winter attack arose from 
autumn flies laying their eggs on autumn sown corn or wild grass. 
The maggot winters in the neck of the plant, in spring the infested 
shoot forms a thickened growth with wide leaves, and presently the 
infested shoot dies, and the fly coming out from the chrysalis within 
starts the attack of " gout," which, regularly as the summer comes, 
causes loss, sometimes to a very serious extent, on barley. 
