Communicated by Mr J. C. F. Fryer. THE fact that very extensive damage to corn crops throughout Northern and Central Europe may be the work of the frit-fly has been recognisea for the past century and a half, the first record being published by Linne in 1750, but in the British Isles it is in only comparatively recent years that public attention has been directed to the losses caused by these depredations, though in many parts of the country the crops (especially of oats) are always liable to be attacked, and in some years the damage done is enormous. A very large amount of literature on the subject has been published, chiefly continental. and much of it appears in periodicals or reports of only a limited circulation. In the following pages an attempt is-made to collate all the more important facts concerning the frit-fly contained in such of this literature as has been accessible, with a view to arriving a t some idea of what has been discovered up to the present time of t.he life history, and methods of combating the attacks, of this destructive little insect. Much of the information contained in Russian publications has been extracted from The Review qf Applied Entomology. On the Continent two species, of Oscinis (0. f r i t and 0. pusilla) are considered t o be responsible for frit-fly attacks, but as the 0. pzssdla Meig. which several economic entomologists have professed to recognise is certainly not the form or species described by Meigen under that name, and as most authorities of the present day on Diptera consider 0. frit to be a species exhibiting very considerable variation in the colour of its legs and in its size, reference to any such varieties (including 0. pusilln) are incorporated in the present summary.

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