Eighth Report of the State Entomologist. 167 



Reply. — This insect is without doubt Janus flaviventris Fitch; see 

 Fitch's seventh report, species No. 12. This discovery of yours is a 

 very interesting one, if the insect works in the way described by Lint- 

 ner in his fourth report, page 47. — [December 5, 1890,] 



On turning to Dr. Fitch's Seventh Report (page 165 of the Sixth- 

 Ninth Reports, 1865), vve find, as Nos. 12 and 3 3, Janus flavivtntriSy 

 n. sp., and PhylloeC"S trlmaculalus Say, followed by: "In rj'e fields 

 toward harvest time, scattering heads of the grain remaining erect and 

 having a prematurely rij^e appearance, the straw bored its whole length 

 by a footless worm a half-inch long." In the text following, Dr. Fitch 

 questions whether this may be the work of some species of Chlorops, 

 or of some saw-fly nearly related to the Cephus pygnieus of Europe 

 [since found in the State of New York]. He then adds: "A New 

 York insect of this kind, the same in size with the European species, 

 and coming abroad like it the last of May, has the hind body cj'lindri- 

 cal instead of being compressed, and consequently pertains to the 

 genus Janus.'''' 



Dr. Fitch's description of the species is herewith given, that it may be 

 seen hereafter if it be the one tiiat may be bred from the girdled currant 

 stems. The girdling operation would be anomalous in the Cephidae. 



It is a ])retty little fly of a shining black color, with its hind body 

 lemon-yellow except at its base, its mouth being straw-colored, and 

 also the hind margin of its collar, the base of its wings, a small black 

 spot above its sockets, and the fore and hind margins of the raeta- 

 thorax. The hind body is more narrow than the fore bod}', and more 

 narrow and long than in the typical species of this genus, forming 

 almost two-thirds of the total length of the insect. Its basal segment 

 is black, edged anteriorly with straw-yellow, and with a slender line of 

 this color along its middle, ending in a large triangular spot. The 

 second segment is also black except at its hind end; and on the sides is 

 a blackish cloud on the surface of each of the remaining segments. 

 The wings are hyaline and glossy, their stigma sooty brown, which 

 color extends inward, occupying most of the anterior marginal cell. A 

 faint smoky cloud may also be perceived near tlse middle of the pos- 

 terior apical cell, and another along the margin of the anterior one. 

 The hind feet are dusky. 



Janus is a genus < f the t>oc< r/VA', allied to Cephus. J. fluviven- 

 tris Fitch is the only species recorded in thisiounlry. Mr. Edward 

 Norton has included it in his " Catalogue of the Tenthredinida> and 

 Uroceridu' of North America," in 1867, in the last-named family, but 

 had not seen the species.* Mr. E. T. Cresson, in his later Catalogue 

 (1^80) of the same families, includes it among the Tenthredinichi , and 

 in his more recent "Synopsis of the Hymenoptera of North America," 

 in the Uroceridm (page 172). 



*In Transactions of the American Entomological Society, ii, 1869, p. 314 (quotes Fitch's 

 description). 



