66 APPLE LEAVES, APHIS ATTENDANTS GOLDEN-ROD FLT. 



margin. These four bands upon the wings thus present a resemblance to thi 

 Roman numerals VII placed in an inverted position. 



Another of our New-York species of Teph it 's is closely related to the one now 

 described, and probably has the same habits, though as I have met with it but 

 seldom, I have not had an opportunity to observe its movements. It is slightly 

 smaller than the honey dew fly, and like it has four black bands upon the wings, 

 but here these bands are broader than the intervening spaces, and the two inner 

 ones are confluent at their posterior ends, which do not reach the margin, whilst 

 the two outer ones arc confluent at their anterior ends, the bands thus resembling 

 an upright letter V followed by an inverted one. The other band, moreover, only 

 touches the margin at its ends, and the wings are somewhat opake and of a white 

 color, with only the axillary portion hyaline. The head and antenna) are light 

 yellow, the face white; the thorax is black, with a milky-white stripe on each 

 side and four broad ash-gray stripes above, the outer ones interrupted towards 

 their anterior ends ; the scutel is white and waxy, or porcelain-like ; the abdomen 

 is black, with the posterior edges of its segments whitish; the feet and shanks 

 are yellow, the thighs black. I name this, in allusion to the marks upon its 

 wings, the Lettered Tephritis (71 tabdlaria). 



Ill this connection I may observe that the fly named Tephritis 

 Asteris by Dr. Harris (New England Insects, p. 498,) the larva 

 of which infests the stalks of our American Asters producing glo- 

 bular swellings or galls therein, the size of walnuts, I have never 

 met with. But a larger species, attacking the Solidago or golden- 

 rod in the same manner, is quite common in eastern New- York.. 

 This fly, however, pertains to the genus Acinia, which has been 

 separated from Tephritis by Desvoidy. Every larmer's boy has 

 noticed how the slender, straight, smooth stalk of the golden-rod, 

 growing with other weeds along old fences, quite often has one 

 and sometimes two large round galls or ball-like swellings upon 

 them, an inch in diameter,, when the stalk above and below is 

 less than a quarter of an inch. And many have had the curi- 

 osity to cut into these balls, and have found a plump well-fed 

 white maggot in their centre. By the first of August the swel- 

 lings have about completed their growth, although the worm 

 within is as yet so small as to be scarcely perceptible to the naked 

 eye. In the winter season, the leaves having fallen and left the 

 stalks naked, these balls are more frequently observed; but at 

 this period of the year most of them are found to be empty, with 

 a round hole perforated in them, the worm having completed its 

 growth and the winged fly having come out through this perfora- 

 tion the preceding autumn. But occasionally one of these balls 



