494- Bulletin 78. 



Its popular name. — From the time the insect first became known 

 by a scientific name, it has been popularly known as the Cabbage- 

 fly or maggot, and equally as commonly known as the Radish-fly 

 or maggot ; some have more correctly called them Cabbage or 

 Radish Root Maggots. It has also been called the Cauliflower 

 and the Turnip-maggot when these were the crops under discus- 

 sion. No one has doubted that the common Cabbage, Cauli- 

 flower, and Turnip-maggot were the same insect, and we now 

 believe the Radish-maggot is also the same.* 



Therefore, its scientific name, brassicae, at once suggests the 

 cabbage, and the insect is more familiar to gardeners as the 

 maggot infesting the several varieties of cabbage than as the 

 radish-maggot ; for these reasons we use the popular name of 

 Cabbage-fly, or better and more familiar to gardeners, the Cab- 

 bage Root Maggot. 



COMPARISON OF THE PEST WITH OTHER COMMON 

 ROOT MAGGOTS OR ANTHOMYIIANS. 



Our study of this pest has been greatly complicated by the 

 lack of definite comparative knowledge of it and some other com- 

 mon Anthomyiians which have been confounded with it. This 

 lack of comparative knowledge has given us a somewhat compli- 

 cated synonomy for the insect, and has led some observers to 

 confound two or three different insects. 



We have found that there are three common Anthomyiians 

 more or less intimately associated with the Cabbage Root Maggot, 

 two of which doubtless attack the same plants. To save future 

 observers the labor it has cost us to understand these closely allied 

 and easily confused root maggots, it seems advisable to include 

 in this bulletin the following brief discussion of each of these 

 allied forms. 



*A detailed discussion of our reasons for believing the common Cabbage 

 and Radish-maggots to be identical is given on a previous page under the 

 food-plants of the pest, and also from the systematist's standpoint in the 

 discussion of the synonomy near the end of the bulletin. 



