362 



Pupa. — Cyliiuliical, tlattened a little iu front, the dorsuin very slightly depressed 

 behind the thorax. Abdoniiual segments without motion. Body punctured and wing 

 cases creased, but slightly. Creniaster covered by a bundle of short hooks and sur- 

 rounded by similar hooks on the last segment, which also extend up the dorsum in 

 little transverse rows. Color, red browu. Length, 14™'". 



Throughout the larva is subject to considerable variation. The duration of each 

 stage was (brce days, except the last two, which were longer. Pupa, 14 days. 



Food-plant. — The rubber tree, Fiats peduiicuJaia. Larva from Dade County, Fla. 



THE TULIP TREE LEAF GALL FLY. 



Diplosis Uriodendii O. S. 



In the Garden & Forest for December 18, 1889, Mr. J. G. Jack again 

 publishes a good account of an insect with which we have long been 

 familiar and about which we have had notes for a longtime in the note- 

 books of the Division which have not seen the light of print. 



One of the earliest objects of entomological interest which met our 

 e^'e when we first came to Washington was a tulip tree, the leaves of 

 which were badly infested by this species and which stood under the 

 window of the Division of Entomology. Attempts were made by Prof. 

 Comstock to rear the adult early in the summer of 1871), but he did not 

 succeed until with a later brood the same season. In October, 1879, how- 

 ever, several adults representing both sexes were reared, and descrip- 

 tions of these, as well as of the early stages, have since remained un- 

 published in the notes of the Division. 



Mr. Jack, as appears from his article, has recently reared the same 

 insect around Boston, and is the first to record the appearance of tbe 

 adult. Osten Sacken, iu 1862, described the gall and the larva, but did 

 not rear the fly. The appearance of the galls is well described by the 

 latter author iu the following words : 



Brown spots with a yellow or greenish aureole on the leaves of the Tulip tree 

 {Liriodendron talipifera). These spots, about two-tenths or three-teuths of an inch 

 in diameter, indicate the presence inside of the leaf of a leaf- mining larva of Cecido- 

 myia. *• » * 



The effect of the blotches at Boston is described by Mr. Jack and 

 corresponds well with the results of the work of the insect as seen at 

 Washington : 



Many people who have always counted upon their Tulip trees as belonging to one 

 of the few species free from serious insect attacks, have, by midsummer, been dis- 

 gusted to find the leaves filled with large, brown, and yellow blotches. In some in- 

 stances the foliage,, by the end of August, has become so brown and twisted from the 

 effect of numerous spots in every leaf that it has had the appearance of having been 

 scorched by fire, and many of the leaves having thus become dead an<l dry fall to the 

 ground. 



Each of these spots before maturity contains a siogle orange colored 

 maggot which issues, when full-grown, through a slit at the edge of the 

 under side of the blotch and falls to the ground to transform. 



