Annual Report for 1893 of the Zoologist. 
821 
gated with advantage during the absence of the sheep. Dr. Fleming 
suggests the smearing of the muzzles of sheep with fish-oil or tar to 
keep away the fly, and recommends that this should be accomplished 
automatically by supplying the sheep with a box of salt to which 
they can only obtain access through holes, about two inches in 
diameter, the borders of which have been well smeared with the 
preparation. A farmer who was asked to try this plan reports, 
however, that “ the sheep soon tired of the salt, and consequently 
did not smear their own noses effectually.” 
It is well to avoid, if possible, grazing the sheep during hot 
weather on pastures bordered by underwood, where the flies are often 
to be found in great numbers. When only a few animals begin to 
show symptoms of attack, they should be immediately singled out and 
slaughtered. 
Remedies . — If the cure of a badly infested sheep be attempted at 
all, the aid of a veterinary surgeon will probably be found necessary. 
No very beneficial results appear to ensue from the injection of 
snuff or other irritants into the nostrils, nor from fumigating the 
sheep with sulphur in a closed room. These measures are sometimes 
instrumental in ridding the animals of a certain number of the 
maggots, but if the violent snorting caused by their presence does 
not suffice to dislodge them, it is hardly to be expected that other 
irritants should prove more effectual. 
A good account of this pest is to be found in Neumann’s 
Parasites, translated by Dr. Fleming. 
Gout- fly. 
Cldorops tceniopus, Meigen. 
This well-known barley pest has been exceedingly prevalent 
during the year, and complaints of its ravages have been received 
from Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Essex, Wiltshire, 
Gloucestershire, and Somersetshire. 
The fly and the injury caused by it have frequently been 
described in the Society’s Entomological Reports, so that a very brief 
account will here be sufficient. 
Infested barley heads present a very characteristic appearance. 
The sheath leaves become spirally twisted at the tip, tightly enclos- 
ing the withered ear. On removing the sheath, the ear and stalk as 
far as the first knot are seen to be channelled by the gout-fly maggot, 
and in this channel either the white larva or the brownish yellow 
pupa will be found. 
There is no remedy in case of advanced infestation, for the ears 
are irremediably destroyed. If the attack be observed at a very early 
stage, and the spirally twisted sheath-leaves are noticeable when the 
ear is beginning to form, there is little doubt that a forcing manure, 
such as nitrate of soda, would increase the yield, by enabling some of 
the damaged ears to survive the attack. 
