18 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 



several species of saw-flies, as I have endeavored to give somewhat special attention to the 

 extensive and injurious section of phytophagous (plant-eating) Hymenoptera, to which 

 these insects belong. I have not yet had time to catalogue all the species recorded from> 

 Canada, but I find that we have in tho immediate neighborhood of Ottawa about one hun- 

 dred and sixty species, of which several are decidedly obnoxious pests. Saw-flies are so- 

 named because the female has the ovipositor saw-like in form, and fitted to cut a slit in 

 the leaf or twig in which she desires to deposit her egg. The worm hatched from this 

 egg is not a footless maggot, such as that of the other sections of the Hymenoptera, but 

 is provided with both thoracic and abdominal feet, is able to travel about in search of 

 fresh food, and has much resemblance to the caterpillars of certain moths. The worms 

 feed upon the tissues of the leaves, and, when numerous, soon strip the plants attacked. 

 A good example of the ordinary saw-fly larva is the worm that is so troublesome on goose- 

 berry and currant bushes, when they are not carefully sprinkled with hellebore. 



The Larch Saw-fly {Nematus Erichsonii, Hartig.) 



It would be almost impossible to calculate, and very difiicult even to imagine, the 

 enormous loss occasioned in the tamarack forests of Canada, during the past decade, by 

 the inconspicuous insect which has become known to Entomologists as the Saw-fly of the 

 Larch. The first mention of it in the Annual Reports of the Entomological Society of 

 Ontario is found in that for the year 1883 (No. XIV., page 17) where, in the account of 

 the proceedings of the Annual Meeting, the Rev. Mr. Fyles, of Quebec, is reported as 

 stating : " That much injury had been caused to the tamarack trees, Larix Americana, in 

 Bury and the neighboring townships, by a species of saw-fly, the same, probably, as that 

 which has caused so much injury in Maine and the other eastern States, Nematus 

 Er/'chsonii." 



The following year the same gentleman reported that : "The larch saw-fly had ex- 

 tended it ravages along the Beauce Valley to the neighborhood of Quebec, where it had 

 stripped the tamaracks bare. A second growth of leaves had appeared, and this, prob- 

 ably, would save the trees." 



Mr. Fletcher also spoke of the " enormous damage " done by this insect. He had 

 first noticed it near Quebec, and had traced it down the Intercolonial Railway wherever 

 any larch trees occurred, as far as Dalhousie (N.B.), where he found it abundant. He 

 also exhibited a species of bug, Podisus modestus, which had been found destroying the 

 larvse at Brome, Que. (Ann. Rept. No. XV., p. 22.) The same Report (pages 72-77) 

 contains a carefully prepared paper by Mr. Fletcher, on the habits and appearance of the 

 insect. 



In 1885 (Ann. Rept. No. XVI., page 12), Rev. Mr. Fyles reported : " That the insect 

 had again been abundant at Quebec, and that tamaracks that had survived the attack of last 

 vear, now showed tokens of decay, some of the branches only putting forth a second crop 

 of leaves, and that but a sparse one." He described the manner in which one of the fos- 

 sorial wasps, Odynenis ca-pra, had been observed to prey upon the larva\ At the same 

 meeting in " Some Notes on Tenthredinidas, 1885," (Canadian Entomologist, Vol. XVIII.,. 

 page 39), 1 mentioned the finding, at Ottawa on 24:th June, of several colonies of the 

 larvse of this saw-fly upon trees near the line of the Canada Atlantic Railway. 



Mr. John G. Jack, of Chateauguay, Que., in a paper read before the Montreal Branch 

 on 9th Feb., 1886, records (Ann. Rept. XVII., page 16,) the occurrence of the destroying 

 insects in his neighborhood as follows : " On July 5th I found some larch trees with the 

 foliage very much destroyed by saw-fly larvjie, and on examining the trees in the woods 

 and surrounding country, I found that they were all attacked. At this time most of the 

 larvae seemed to be a little more than half-grown, and they continued to feed until about 

 July 15th, when some of them made cocoons. Many of the trees were now entirely de- 

 foliated, and the branches and twigs literally covered with the larvse, many of which were 

 dropping to the ground, and with the falling ' frass ' made a sound like fast falling rain- 

 drops." 



