THE GOOSEBERRY. 



AFFECTING THE FRUIT. 



The young fruit becoming red and putrid, containing within it one or 

 more small bright yellow maggots. 



The Gooseberry Midge. — Cecidomyia Grossularia. 



It is common to find upon the gooseberry bushes in our gardens 

 some of the young fruit of a prematurely ripe appearance, turn- 

 ing red and dropping to the ground. Some years much of the 

 fruit is lost in this way. This premature ripening of the goose- 

 berry is caused by insects puncturing and depositing their eggs 

 in it. We have at least two insects which thus attack the goose- 

 berry. One of these appears to be a species of moth which I have 

 not yet obtained in its perfect state. The other is the larva of a 

 midge or a bmall two-winged fly, of the genus Cecidomyia and 

 family Tipulidje. On examining some of these affected gooseber- 

 ries early in July, their pulp was found to be putrid and infested 

 with small maggots of a bright yellow color and oval form, their 

 bodies divided into segments by five impressed transverse lines, 

 and their whole appearance being closely like the larvae of the 

 Wheat midge, found in the ears of wheat. These completed their 

 transformations and gave out the winged flies the latter part of 

 the month of July. In size, number of joints to the antenna?, etc., 

 these correspond with the C. Ribesii of Europe, but that is de- 

 scribed by Macquart (Dipteres, vol. i. p. 162,) as having black 

 bands upon the thorax, the abdomen blackish, &c. Hence it is 

 evidently a much darker colored species. 



The Gooseberry Midge is scarcely the tenth of an inch in length to the tips 

 of the closed wings. It is of a pale yellaw color, the thorax paler than the 

 abdomen, and of a wax-yellow hue; eyes black; antennae blackish, of twelve 

 joints, separated by hyaline pedicels one-third as long as the joints, which are 

 short cylindrical with rounded ends, their length scarcely more than double 

 their breadth; legs straw yellow, faintly tinged with dusky towards their tips; 

 wings hyaline, faintly tinged with dusky. 



It is probable that those flies which come out the latter part of 

 July deposit a second crop of eggs in the gooseberries, or else re- 

 sort to some other fruit of a similar nature, and that the larvae 

 which come from these eggs lie in the ground during the winter; 

 for we do not perceive how, otherwise, there can be flies in June 

 to deposit their eggs in the young Iruit. 



All fruit upon the gooseberry bushes which is found premature- 

 ly decaying and assuming a ripened appearance, and all which 

 falls to the ground, should be gathered and thrown into the fire, 

 to destroy the worms which the berries contain. By attention to 

 this measure the haunts of this insect in the garden can be easily 

 broken up, whereas, if this step is neglected the evil will be liable 

 to continue year after year. As this insect breeds equally 

 well in the wild gooseberries, we cannot hope to exterminate it 

 from our country. Eut none of these wild gooseberries should be 

 permitted to grow in the vicinity of the garden, for from them, 

 if near, this midge will continually be finding its way to the 

 bushes of the cultivated gooseberry. 



