192 FIRST ANNUAL EEPOET OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Curtis, in his Farm Insects, gives but a brief account of it. It is 

 placed under the *' Insects affecting the turnip crops/' and more par- 

 ticularly under those infesting " anbury." Anbury is defined as a 

 malformation or large excrescence produced below the bulb of certain 

 vegetables, which, when they arrive at maturity, exhibit a putrid fer- 

 mentation and emit a most offensive smell. When the anburies are 

 divided they are hard ; but with the assistance of a lens, veins or 

 string-like vessels may be seen dispersed through the tumor. It is be- 

 lieved by Curtis that they are not occasioned by insects, but are sub- 

 sequently entered and occupied by multitudes of maggots, which feed 

 upon the putrid substance and contribute in no small degree to the 

 more speedy dissolution of the bulbs. The cause of the disease is 

 probably to be found in certain conditions of the soil, induced, per- 

 haps, by the long-continued repetition of certain crops. 



The eggs of the root-fly are deposited in the crown of the turnip or 

 close to the young bulb. Hatching, the larvas proceed downward to 

 the bulb, into which they enter and where they are to be found, and 

 not in the surrounding soil, as frequently in the onion-fly. They are 

 described by Curtis, from examples taken from turnips on July 21st, as 

 follows: " Similar in form to those of A. brassicm, but of a yellowish- 

 ochre color. The head was armed with two black hooks, and at the 

 extremity was a green stripe from the intestines, showing through ; the 

 rump was truncated, and furnished with two brown projecting spiracles, 

 and the margin surrounded with small teeth, largest below. I put 

 them, with a turnip root, into a flower pot, and the following April I 

 found four of them in the pupa state, and buried deep in the earth ; these 

 pupae were also like those of A. brassicm, but of a paler color, being 

 lurid ochreous. On the 26th of April I bred a male fly, and soon after 

 two females. 



'* The fly is similar in size and form to A. brassicm, but the male 



(Fig. 54) has an ochreous face, reflect- 

 ing satiny-white ; the stripe on the fore- 

 head is rusty ; the thorax is black, with 

 three darker stripes ; the sides are gray ; 

 scutel blackish ; abdomen slender, linear 

 shining gray, with a broad black dorsal 

 stripe ; the incisures are black also ; 

 wings, balancers and legs as in A. hras- 

 FiG. 54.— The root-fly, Anthomtia sic(B. Female still more like that species ; 



RADicuM Linn. The fly only, not the ■,,,■, j.i j? i. • i.\ 



figures. (After Curtis.) but there are three fuscous stripes on the 



thorax, and in certain lights a slender dark line down the back of the 

 abdomen ; length, 2 1-2 lines." 



Miss Ormerod, writing the present year of this insect, says : " These 



