STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
515 
RADISH-FLY■ MAGGOT BORES RADISH ROOTS. 
Radish-fly and worm, Anthomyia Baphani , Harris. (Diptera. Muscida.) 
Boring in tho roots of tho radish; white maggots thrico as loDg as thick, their bluntly 
flattened hind end margined with minute teeth, of which tho lower two are larger and 
notched at their tips; the pupa lying underground and producing ash gray flies having on 
tho hind body a black stripe on the middle of the back crossed by narrower black lines on 
the edges of the rings. 
The leaves of the radish, are perforated with small holes by the 
same Striped flea-beetles which infest the cabbage leaves. But the 
worst enemy of this vegetable is the larva of the Radish-fly, An¬ 
thomyia Raphani as it is named by Dr. Harris, although it appears 
to be identical in every particular with the European A. rcidicum. 
This larva is a maggot which eats spots in the skin of the radish 
and also bores an irregular yellow track in the white interior of 
the root, rendering it hard, stringy and unfit for the table. Here¬ 
by a large portion of the radishes grown in all our gardens are 
every year worthless, and many never attempt'to grow this vege¬ 
table, in consequence of its liability to be thus worm eaten. It is 
only my earliest sown radishes, each year, from which I obtain 
any that are fit for use, and for several years past, this first sowing 
has also been a total failure. The worm and also the pupa differs 
in no respect from those of the Onion-fly, that I perceive, except 
that at the hind end the two larger teeth on the middle of the 
underside are slightly notched or two-toothed at their tips, instead 
of being tapered to a single point. The flies, too, are very simi¬ 
lar, but here three faint brownish stripes are perceptible on the 
thorax or fore-body, and upon the hind-body in the male is a 
black stripe along the middle of the back, which is crossed by 
narrower black lines on each of the sutures. 
Sometimes the wounds of the radish are merely superficial, con¬ 
sisting of round pits ate in the skin, and possibly it is some other 
worm living in the ground which gnaws these shallow holes. 
These may be wholly cut out with tho knife, in preparing the 
radishes for the table, and thus their injury is unimportant. But 
at other times the maggot is found in the root, in a burrow which 
it has bored, running irregularly about in the interior, to the 
length of one or two inches, forming a tawny yellow streak in tho 
white succulent substance of the root. Sometimes these streaks 
run everywhere through the root. The external orifice is wet and 
slimy, and the worm is frequently noticed reposing here at tho 
mouth of its burrow, its blunt hind end forming a plug as it were 
k> the hole. "When disturbed it retreats inward, moving along its 
