494 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 



Flies closely resembling this are sometimes seen in privies, and 

 a friend has presented me with one of them, together with the 

 dried larva-skin out of which it came. The larva was found 

 in excrement. The fly is grayish black, and hairy, with large 

 copper-colored eyes, which are surrounded by a narrow silvery 

 white line. It measures one quarter of an inch in length. The 

 larva-skin has two rows of hairs on the back, and two more 

 on each side. Another fly, sometimes seen on windows in the 

 autumn, is produced, if I mistake not, from a hairy maggot 

 that lives in rotten turnips. This fly strikingly resembles the 

 Anthomyia canicularis of Europe, and is possibly identical with 

 it. It is of a dark gray color, with copper-colored eyes, encir- 

 cled by a silvery white line, and with a large, semitransparent, 

 yellowish spot on each side of the first three rings of the hind 

 body. It measures rather less than one quarter of an inch in 

 length. The fringed maggots of the canicularis are stated by 

 some naturalists to have been obtained from the human body. 

 It is not impossible that they may have been swallowed with 

 turnips, or other vegetables, eaten when going to decay. 



Radishes, while growing, are very apt to be attacked by 

 maggots, and rendered unfit to be eaten. These maggots are 

 finally transformed to small, ash-colored flies, with a silvery 

 gray face, copper-colored eyes, and a brown spot on the fore- 

 head of the females; they have some faint brownish lines on 

 the thorax, and a longitudinal black line on the hind body, 

 crossed by narrower black lines on the edges of the rings. They 

 vary in size, but usually measure rather more than one fifth of 

 an inch in length. They finish their transformations, and appear 

 above ground, towards the end of June. The radish-fly is called 

 Anthomyia Raphani, in my " Catalogue," from the botanical 

 name of the radish, on the root of which its larvae feed. It 

 closely resembles the root-fly [Anthomyia radicuin) of Europe. 



Onions, soon after they come up in the spring, and until they 

 are grown to a considerable size, are often observed to turn 

 yellow and die. Many years ago I remember to have seen 

 them extensively affected in this way, so that there was a fail- 

 ure of three fourths of the plants in a large bed. The cause 

 of their death was not suspected at the time, and no examina- 



