672 NOTES ON AUSTRALIAN SAWFLIES. 



pillars mature on the leaves of the Iron bark-trees, and, when 

 numerous, as thev were last season (1917), do not leave a leaf 

 on the trees. When full\^ matured, they come down and die 

 all round the trunks of the trees: and it is at this stage that 

 cattle lick them up: an overdose is fatal, particularly to young 

 stock, such as weaners, nine to twelve months old, and calves. 

 I fancy that acute inflammation of the bowels causes death: and 

 the beast appears to be in terrible pain towards the end. I am 

 inclined to think that a good deal of sand is licked up with the 

 caterpillars, and this may add to the irritation." 



" The adult sawtlies emerge and are active all through April, 

 the caterpillars feeding upon the foliage through the winter. Tn 

 August, the full-grown caterpillars come down the trunks of the 

 trees, and die in heaps; and, for about three weeks, are a danger 

 to the young cattle in the paddocks. I think it must be a craving 

 for salt that attracts them, and we have laid rock-salt round the 

 trees, but once they have acquired a taste for the caterpillars 

 they will rush round the Ironbarks to lick them up.' 



" r have had to remove all my cattle into the open country 

 away from the iron bark-forest, or my losses would have been 

 very heavv. As it was, I lost eighty head out of a mob of four 

 hundred, sixty weaners and twenty cows. Twenty per cent, is 

 very heavy in a week, and all the beasts that died were in 

 splendid condition; in fact the fattest seemed to suffer most." 



In my opinion, this caterpillar-pest is going to prove a very 

 serious matter; and the only remedy will be to ringbark the 

 ironbark-trees in some of the paddocks, so that the cattle can be 

 kept away from the infested areas. 



[Printed off, l)eoeml>er Utli, 1<>IS. 



