66 APPLE LEAVES, APHIS ATTENDANTS — GOLPEN-KOD FLT. 



apical margin . These four bands upon the wings thus present a resemblance to t}ie 

 Eoman numerals VII placed in an inverted position. 



Another of our Kew-Tork species of Tephritis is closely related to the one now- 

 described, and probably has the same habits, though as I have met with it but sel- 

 dom I have not had an opportunity to observe its,movements. It is slightly smaller 

 than the honey-dew fly, and like it has four black bands upon the wings, but here 

 these bands are broader than the intervening spaces, and the two inner ones are con- 

 fluent at their posterior ends, which do not reach the margin, whilst the two outer ones 

 are confluent at their anterior ends, the bands thus resembling an upright letter V 

 followed by an inverted one. The outer band, moreover, only touches the margin at 

 its ends, and the wings are somewhat opake and of a white color, with only the axil- 

 lary portion hyaline. The head and antenna; are light yellow, the face white; the 

 thorax is black, with a milky-white stripe on each side and four broad ash-grey 

 stripes above, the outer ones interrupted towards their anterior ends ; the scutel is 

 white and waxy, or porcelain-like ; the abdomen is black, with the posterior edges of 

 its segments whitish; the feet and shanks are yellow, the thighs black. I name 

 this, in allusion to the marks upon-its wings, the Lettered Tephritis (T. tahellaria). 



In this connection I may observe that the fly named Tephritis 

 j2sfem by Dr. Harris (New England Insects, p. 498,) the larva 

 of which infests the stalks of our American Asters producing glo- 

 bular swellings or galls therein, the size of walnuts, I have never 

 met with. But a larger species, attacking the Solidago or golden- 

 rod in the same manner, is quite common in eastern New- York. 

 This fly, however, pertains to the genus ^cinia, which has been 

 separated from Tephritis by Desvoidy, Every farmer's boy has 

 noticed how the slender, straight, smooth stalks of the golden-rod, 

 growing with other weeds along old fences, quite often has one 

 and sometimes two large round galls or ball-like swellings upoa 

 them, an inch in diameter, when the stalk above and below is 

 less than a quarter of an inch. And many have had the curi- 

 osity to cut into these balls, and have found a plump well-fed 

 white maggot in their centre. By the first of August the swel- 

 lings have about completed their growth, although the worm 

 within is as yet so small as to be scarcely perceptible to the naked 

 eye. In the winter season, the leaves having fallen and left the 

 stalks naked, these balls are more frequently observed : but at 

 this period of the year most of them are found to be empty, with 

 a round hole perforated in them, the worm having completed its 

 growth and the winged fly having come out through this perfora- 

 tion the preceding autumn. But occasionally one of these- balls 



