26 
CORN AND GRASS. 
There are two distinct forms of attack, one that in some degree 
affects the winter plant, but does harm mainly by keeping up the pest 
to attack the crop in the following season, which the succeeding brood 
then injures by causing not only distorted growth, and more or less 
abortion of the ear, but also unevenness in date of ripening, very in¬ 
convenient in harvesting. 
The fly appears to deposit her eggs for this summer attack either 
on the ear or at its base, whilst still very young, or to place its eggs, 
one or two at a time, on the sheathing leaves, so that the maggot on 
hatching can make its way to the ear then in an early stage of its 
development within them. Here the maggot feeds, and the channel 
caused by its gnawing may be readily seen by opening a “gouty” 
head of Barley, where a brown furrow will be found running from the 
base, or possibly from a little above the base of the ear down to the 
first knot. This injury, of course, distorts and affects the growth of 
the top of the stem, and consequently the diseased ear is often to be 
known by being still in its sheathing leaves when others are free, 
and likewise deficient in size and in grain, and the stem-part often 
swollen. 
In this furrow the chrysalis, to which the maggot turns, may be 
found in the ripening or ripened Corn, and in autumn, where attack 
has been bad, the flies may be found in legions in recently-stacked 
Barley. I have myself found them in such vast numbers in one part 
of a stack that they fell with a noise like dropping sand from the 
handfuls of Corn I pulled out of the stack over a paper held below. 
The winter attack, as observed in Germany, is from these flies 
laying their eggs on late-sown Corn or wild grass. The maggot pierces 
into the neck of the plant and there winters, and in spring the 
diseased shoot forms a thickened growth with wide leaves, but the 
rest of the plant has not been found to be affected. The diseased 
shoot appears to die away gradually whilst the Haulm Fly goes 
through its changes within, and comes out at the right time to start the 
summer attack, as mentioned above. 
From some slight observations or passing remarks this winter form 
of attack appears to exist in England, but I am not aware of it having 
been recorded in detail. 
With regard to methods of prevention : the attack, as far as 
recorded, and as far as I have seen it myself, is worst on wet parts of 
the field, or along the water-furrows, or near grass headlands, where 
the ground was sheltered or damp ; and where attack recurs, as it 
sometimes does each time Barley or Oats are grown in some special 
locality, the state of drainage , or the condition of the soil, should be 
seen to. The maggot itself cannot be acted on by dressings whilst 
wrapped in the growing shoot, but, as the injury consists in the 
