926 
Annual Report of New York 
CURRANT-WORM. THE PLIES DESCRIBED. 
rings, and the fourth ring is destitute of legs, but on each of the six rings follow- 
ing it and also at the tip is a pair of short, thick, fleshy, retractile prolegs, of a 
pale color, which the larva protrudes to aid it when crawling. 
When they are done feeding they cast their skins again, and then 
become very much changed in appearance from what they have pre¬ 
viously been, all vestiges of the shining black dots having vanished, 
and the worm being now of a very pale pea-green color, almost 
white, with the neck and the penultimate segment sulphur yellow, 
and the head pale like the body, with a small black dot upon each 
side. When it has come out thus colored it crawls slightly away 
from its cast-off skin, and then remains at rest and motionless about 
five or six hours. It then crawls down the currant stalk and goes 
into the ground, burying itself slightly under the surface. It here 
incloses itself in a yellowish cocoon of a very dense membranous 
texture and a regular oval form, in which it changes to a pupa, and 
lies reposing for about a fortnight. In two instances in which I 
particularly observed the dates, it being in the month of June, the 
flies came forth, one on the twelfth the other on the fourteenth day 
after the worm entered the ground. 
The fliks are 0.38 long to the end of the abdomen and wings, but in the pre¬ 
served specimen the abdomen shrinks and the body measures but about 0.30 to its 
tip. They are 0.70 in width across the extended wings. The head is black and 
shining, very slightly clothed with short gray pubescence. The edges of the 
orbits of the eyes are distinctly of a dull whitish color in the living specimen, but 
after death this color fades and becomes imperceptible. There is also a dull white 
spot between the antennae. The mouth is more clear dull white, the jaws or man¬ 
dibles being black, except at their bases. The antennae arc black, their under¬ 
sides dull brown; they are three-fourths the length of the body, slightly more 
slender towards their tips, nine-jointed, the two first joints small, the third joint 
slightly if at all longer than the fourth, the remaining ones successively slightly 
diminishing in length and thickness. The thorax is palo yellow, shining, and 
clothed like the head and antennae with short gray pubescence. It has on the 
back three large black spots occupying the elevations of the lobes, which spots are 
usually more or less confluent, and back of these are smaller black transverse 
spots. Beneath, the middle of the breast is black, a black spot anteriorly occupies 
the collar, and on each side is a triangular black spot, placed obliquely, below the 
wing sockets. On the last segment are two elevated dull white dots. The abdo¬ 
men is bright wax-yellow, fading after death to pale lurid brown ; its base above 
is smoky. The loings are hyaline, slightly smoky ; the veins and the thickened 
outer edge of the upper pair ending in a callous spot called the stigma, are black, 
the inner side of the stigma sometimes having a pale tinge. The upper wings have 
one marginal and four submarginal cells; the first submarginal cell is quadrangular 
and nearly equilateral, its inner anterior side longest; the second cell is elongated 
hexangular, twice as broad anteriorly as posteriorly, the two veinlets at its ante- 
