272 



LEAF-MINING INSECTS 



The goose foot miner, Hylemyia fugax, is a fairly common 

 miner on the leaves of spinach and beet and on the leaves 

 of several weeds. In New York the species is not a serious 

 pest on beets or spinach because of its relative scarcity and 

 its preference for Chenopodium album as a host. 



PEGOMYIA 



Pegomyia is, for a large part, a mining genus. Some of 

 the species mine in the roots of plants, and others in the stems; 



Fig. 89. Mine of Pegomyia calyptrata on dock, showing larvae 



but the majority mine in the leaves. Fifteen authentic 

 leaf-mining species have been recorded from various parts 

 of the world. Only six of these are known to occur in 

 America, the remainder being European species. Polygona- 

 ceae and Chenopodiaceae are the preferred hosts of this 

 genus. 



The characters by which the American leaf -mining species 

 of Pegomyia can be separated in their egg and larva stages, 

 have been presented by one of us (Frost '24), p. 99-100, 

 in convenient tables. 



