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VI. On the (Economy of a new Species of Saw-fly. By Joux Curtis, Esq., F.L.S. $c. 
Read January 15, 1850. 
THE general attention which is now paid to Natural History almost daily brings to light 
some hidden treasure to interest the public and satisfy the inquiring mind. The subject 
of this communication appears to be one of these novelties, for a knowledge of which I am 
indebted to a friend who has lately been admitted a Fellow of the Linnean Society. 
The insect alluded to belongs to the family Tenthredinide, a group of Hymenoptera so 
different in ceconomy from the rest of that Order, that some entomologists have been 
inclined to separate it from the aculeate families. In general habits the Saw-flies resemble 
the Lepidoptera in their second or larva-state, usually feeding on the leaves of plants; but 
there are many instances of their living on the pith in the stems of shrubs *, in fruit t, 
and evidence is not wanting to lead to an opinion that some are parasitical +, whilst others 
form galls §. | ; 
. It is not my intention now to enter farther upon these curious anomalies, but to give 
the ceconomy and descriptions of the species before us, which I propose naming, in honour 
of its captor, Viscount Goderich, 
SELANDRIA ROBINSONI. 
On the 19th of June, 1848, Lord Ripon’s gardener at Putney, Mr. Joseph Jerwood, sent 
me, by the request of Lord Goderich, forty or fifty caterpillars the size of those figured, 
which for two years had devoured the leaves of the Solomon’s Seal; eating enormous holes 
in them, and leaving only portions of the fibres, as exhibited in the drawing (fig. 1). During 
the present year Lord Goderich forwarded to me the following memoranda :— 
* Three years ago (1846), about the month of July, I observed that the only plant in 
our garden of Solomon’s Seal (Convallaria multiflora, L.) was completely covered and 
almost entirely devoured by larvee, which I easily perceived must belong to the family of 
Tenthredinide. They had at that time almost consumed the entire membrane of the 
leaves, and many of them were even feeding on the stalks. In a short time after, they 
had eaten the plant nearly to the ground, leaving only the stronger branches. They did 
not appear to touch any of the surrounding flowers or foliage, but upon the Solomon’s 
Seal they were extremely numerous, amounting I should think on one small plant to full 
one hundred. i 
“ The next year they re-appeared.in the same numbers, and then, being much struck by 
* Dr, Maclean has discovered a larva in the succulent shoots of rose-trees, which may possibly be the offspring of 
Emphytus varipes, a species I have reared from the stems of dog-roses. 
+ I have found the larvæ of Selandria testudinea? feeding in apples, and of S. Morio in plums. 
t Dielocerus Ellisit, Linn. Trans. vol. xix. p. 249. § Nematus intercus causes the rosy galls on willows. 
