78 
OKIONS. 
With regard to egg-laying, the A. ceparum (supposed to be specially 
the Onion Fly) lias been stated by various writers to lay its eggs on the 
leafage, from which eggs the maggots eat their way down into the 
bulb; but from observations made in my own garden I found attack 
Onion Fly, pupa, and maggot, all magnified. Onion bulb, showing pupa remaining 
in stored Onion. 
was generally begun, not in this way, but from eggs laid either quite 
at the base of the bulb or at the lower part of the side. I submitted 
specimens of the Maggots infesting these Onions to Mr. Meade, and 
they proved to be not of A. ceparum, , but of A. platura (more con¬ 
veniently called the Shallot Fly). 
This difference in habit of the two kinds, if constant, is an important 
consideration in methods of dealing with the attack. In my own 
garden I had the bulbs of the Onions kept carefully covered with 
earth during their early growth, and they did not suffer from Maggot 
until about the 3rd of July, when some slight injury appeared, and I 
had the rows well earthed up by means of the hoe, and found this 
answer well; only a few of the Onions were destroyed, and though 
many were afterwards attacked the strength of the plant caused them 
to overgrow the injury, and I had little loss. 
Earlier in the year Mr. Malcolm Dunn forwarded specimens of 
Maggots, then attacking the Onions at Dalkeith, to Mr. Meade (whilst 
still young and as yet with hardly any bulb formed), and these were in 
due course found by Mr. Meade to be of both the Anthomyia antiqua 
and also of Anthomyia platura. 
With regard to the method of attack Mr. Dunn says—“ I have 
examined a good many specimens of Onions, and could discover neither 
eggs nor young grubs above the surface of the ground ; but immediately 
below the surface the grubs are busily at work.” Mr. Dunn also states 
that he is satisfied that these flies are attracted by putrid or decaying 
vegetable matter, and this point is a very important one. In the case 
