44 
KITCHEN-GARDEN PESTS AND HOW TO DEAL WITH THEM. 
BY THE REY. THOMAS W. FYLES, SOUTH QUEBEC. 
In writing on insect pests I have not hoped to tell of any new discoveries. 
My object has been to present in a concise form, for the use of husbandmen and 
housewives, such particulars as I have thought might be interesting and useful 
to them. I have wished to do my part towards the making of the annual reports 
of the Entomological Society of Ontario handy repertories of practical informa- 
tion. 
I shall in this paper tell of kitchen-garden pests, grouping them as flies, lice, 
beetles, butterflies and moths. 
Fires (Order, Diptera). 
THe RapisH Fiy (Anthomyia raphani. Harris)—This fly appears in the 
end of June and the beginning of July. It is rather less than half an inch in 
expanse of wings. Its colour is ash grey. The wings are transparent with a 
yellowish tinge at the base. The halteres or balancers are yellow. The face is 
silvery. The eyes are copper-coloured. The insect lays its eggs on the stems of 
the radish near the ground. The newly-hatched maggots penetrate the swelling 
roots, enlarging their mines as they grow and filling ‘them with frass, rendering 
the radishes quite unfit for food. When full grown the maggots leave the root. 
and change to pupe in the soil. The full grown maggot is about a quarter of an 
inch long, truncated at the end and gradually tapering to a point at the head. 
This is furnished with a pair of black nippers. At the truncated end of the 
creature may be seen the outer prolongations of the two main trachez, and round 
the edge of it a number of teeth or tentacule. The general colour of the maggot 
is shining white. 
I have found that radishes sown on rich soil as soon as the frost is out of the 
ground—at Quebec, as soon as the snow disappears, that is to say in the begin- 
ning of May—will generally attain a growth of an inch and a quarter in diameter 
before they begin to show the operations of the maggot. I have this year made 
three sowings. The first, in May, was a success. Of the second, made early in 
June, about: half of the radishes were fit for the table. Of the third, made in the 
end of the month, hardly any were eatable. They grew to a large size, but were 
bored through and through by the maggots. These were operating as late as 
October. On the 21st of November I had a number of roots dug up from under 
the snow. They contained no maggots, but showed recent traces of them and. 
holes at the lower side where the creatures had made their exit into the soil. 
The remedies that have been suggested against the radish fly have been such 
as by their foul smell are likely to drive the fly away, carbolic acid, gas-lime, etc. 
I have not much faith in such protectives. It seems to me that those who would 
raise late radishes must do so in frames covered, not with glass, but with fine 
netting fastened to slats. 
THE Onton Fry (Phorbia ceparwm, Meigen).—This fly (Fig. 11) also 
appears in June. It is ash-coloured and is set sparsely with black 
