1 60 The Scottish Naturalist 



there are, at the juncture 1 ©? thirsegmental divisions, two black 

 irregular dots situated above the flat sides, the one nearest the 

 top being the largest. A dot is also on the second at its 

 junction with the third. Length 5-6 lines; breadth 1^- 

 2 lines. 



About the 10th of October, the larvae buried themselves in 

 the earth, and constructed black oblong cocoons, mixed with 

 grains of earth, from which the perfect insects made their ap- 

 pearance on the 3rd of May. 



Imago. Head black, with light testaceous palpi. Antennae 

 black, covered with short down, and as long as the abdomen. 

 Thorax black, above and beneath, with an irregular oblong 

 testaceous spot on the sides below the wings ; wing scales 

 reddish-brown. Scutellar spots white. Abdomen black, with the 

 anal segments beneath testaceous. Feet ochreo-testaceous, 

 with the trochanters and tibiae whitish. Hinder tarsi, with the 

 apex of tibiae black; the apex of the joints of the tarsi testaceous. 

 Wings almost smoky, with fuscous nervures and stigmal spot ; 

 the latter having the lower part brownish. One of my speci- 

 mens has only 3 sub-marginal cellules in the anterior wings, as in 

 the section of Nematus called Ciyptocampus. 



The male differs in being smaller, in having longer and 

 thicker antennae, in the pronotum being entirely black, and the 

 anus fuscous. 



In none of my caught specimens can I detect the testaceous 

 spot on the side of the thorax, which is observable in those 

 bred, and it may be, therefore, the effects of the unnatural con- 

 dition under which they were reared. Most of my specimens 

 have the belly entirely black. Length 3-4 lines ; exp. alar. 

 6-7 lines. 



The parasite — one of the Ichneumonida> — remains inside the 

 body of the saw-fly larva until the end of spring, when it com- 

 pletes its destruction, and then spins a thin white cocoon inside 

 the other, from which it emerges at the end of June. 



Note on Saw-fly Larvee and Ichneumons.— Every one who has paid 

 any attention to saw-fly larvee, must have been struck with the curious habits of 

 some of the larger Netnati, which feed exposed on the edge of the leaf. Fre- 

 quently as many as a dozen may be seen ranged along the edge of a sallow 

 leaf, attached to it only by their feet, the rest of the body being flung out in the 



