36 
CORN. 
L 
enough, both last year and again this year (with samples from the far 
worse attack of this season), to examine them, and confirmed my 
opinion that they were the true Oscinis frit of Linngeus. 
The maggot is about the eighth of an inch long, whitish, legless, 
cylindrical, bluntly pointed at the head-end, which is furnished with 
a strong pair of curved mouth-hooks, and on each side near the head 
it has a branched spiracle. At the blunt hinder extremity it has two 
projecting wart-like spiracles. 
The chrysalis is rather smaller than the maggot, cylindrical, and 
rather more pointed at the front than the hinder extremity, which, from 
the strong projection of the two wart-like processes, has the appear¬ 
ance of being cleft, or almost bluntly forked. In the specimens of 
empty chrysalis-cases now before me, I find the peculiar dark, some¬ 
what star-like, marking, which is described by Dr. Taschenberg, and 
was also figured in a series of sketches of details of the puparium, 
with which I was favoured by Prof. Harker, of the Royal Agricultural 
College, Cirencester. In the early condition of puparium the branched 
external spiracle on each side near the head-extremity is very clearly 
observable. During the course of last year’s attack, I have been able 
to secure specimens of the larva (or maggot) of the puparium or 
chrysalis, both with contents and empty, and of the perfect fly; so 
that I shall have no difficulty, if the attack should recur, in identi¬ 
fying it. 
The injury is caused by the maggot feeding in the heart of the 
young corn-plant a little above ground-level, and eating away the 
centre, so that the shoot above the eaten part is destroyed, and the 
damage that is going forward then becomes noticeable from the injured 
shoots turning brown, and withering instead of continuing their 
growth. This was chiefly observed in last year’s attacks at the end of 
June, and in the earlier part of July, at which time the maggots were 
leaving the inside of the infested young plants to turn to chrysalids 
in the dead or dying remains of the outside leafage: from these 
chrysalids the flies began to appear about July 9tli. We had no notes 
of observations of the method of the beginning of the attack to the 
young plants, but this is stated by Dr. E. L. Taschenberg (see 
reference, p. 35) to be for the female to lay her eggs on the under side 
of a leaf, and for the maggots from these eggs to eat into the heart of 
the young plant, and then begin the mischief, which we know only 
too well. 
On June 27th, I received the following communication from 
Mr. Geo. Thomas, of Coosenwartlia, Scorrier, Cornwall, accompanied 
by specimens of yellow and diseased Oat-plants:—“There are great 
complaints in this neighbourhood of the Oat-crop being destroyed by 
a small maggot, which eats the centre of the stalk, and is perceived 
