512 
Ohservations on the various Insects 
M. dolabratus also abounds on grass, in hay fields, in June, and 
is to be met with until the month of September : it is sufficiently 
different from M. Tritici in the form of the head, thorax, and 
scutellum to establish a second section in the Genus Miris. 
OsciNis Granakius. 
I am also indebted to Mr. F. J. Graham for another enemy to 
the wheat-crops. It will be remembered that I lately described 
and figured a fly called Oscinis vastator, which hatched from 
maggots living in the stems of wheat.* A grain of that corn, from 
its rosy colour, attracted Mr. Graham's attention last summer, 
and being secured in a box, it produced a little black fly closely 
allied to O. vastator, but it may be distinguished from it by the 
base of the shank being black, instead of ferruginous ; neither is 
it the Musca Frit f of Linnseus, which I doubt not is a Chlorops. 
On examining the grain of wheat (fig. 17), I found the farina 
squeezed out accidentally, possibly in picking it from the ear ; it 
was of a pink colour, and from amongst it protruded an empty 
shining pupa-case of a rusty ochreous colour (fig-y ; \^ z the same 
magnified) : from this had issued a fly belonging to the Order 
DiPTERA, Family MusciD^, and the Genus Oscinis, and as I 
cannot find it described 1 shall call it, from its feeding on the 
grain, 
16. O. granarius. It is black and shining, with a greenish cast : 
the head is transverse, semiorbicular ; tlie antenna; are black and 
orbicular, with a short pubescent seta ; the eyes are large, remote, 
and oval; ocelli 3 in triangle on the crown: the thorax is nearly 
quadrate; scutellum semiglobose : two wings transparent, irides- 
cent, the nervures dark, and exactly like O. vastator ; two balancers 
with a large ochreous white club : legs black ; the first pair is lost ; 
tour posterior, with the basal joint of the tarsi dirty-ochreous, and 
tip of the intermediate tibiae of the same colour. Fig. 19; a, the 
natural size. 
I regret my inability to give any better history of this little fly, 
but I trust this sketch may lead to a knowledge of its economy, 
should it ever appear in any abundance. It is moreover interest- 
ing, as it shows how insects of the closest affinities vary in their 
habits of life, and it is only a practised eye that can in many cases 
detect the differences of allied species. 
Millipedes, or False Wire-ivorms. 
Before dismissing the insects attacking the wheat, I must not 
forget to state, that in November, 1844, I had some plants sent 
- s . ^ 
• Royal Agric. Jour., vol. v. p. 493, fig. 31 to 34. 
t Ibid., vol. v. p. 480. 
