72 First Report on Economic Zoology. 



The Pear and Cherry Sawfly or Slugworm. 



{Eriocamjpa limacina, Cameron.) 



A few enquiries were received during the past year regarding the 

 Pear and Cherry Sawfly {Eriocanipa limacina). This fruit tree pest 

 has not been so abundant as usual during the past summer and 

 autumn. In some districts where it is usually harmful it has 

 scarcely been noticed. One correspondent ^WTiting from Sitting- 

 bourne, Kent, asked for information concerning these pests, "found 

 in numbers on and destroying his plum and cherry trees," and for the 

 best means of preventing and destroying them. Then- normal food 

 plants are cherry, pear and sometimes hawthorn. It has not been 

 notified before as injurious to plum, although Miss Ormerod mentions 

 plum, and sometimes peach, as being occasional food plants, and on 

 one occasion it is recorded on the quince. Cameron, in his work on 

 " British Phytophagous Hymenoptera " (vol. i. p. 225), mentions 

 other food plants, as Eubus, Amygdalus, Quercus and Betula. 



There is no doubt that this insect is very susceptible to damp 

 weather and thus has not been nearly so harmful during the past 

 year. 



Considerable relief from this pest has been reported by adopting 

 the plan of removing and burning the surface soil during the winter 

 months from beneath trees that had been attacked. 



Notes on Fruit Pests in Orchards at Wisbech. 



Some interesting notes on the ravages of insect pests were sent, 

 together with an enquiry as to the cause of the damage, from 

 Mr. B. W, Gatherwood, of Wisbech. In this letter he states that — 



Plum blossom was cut off by frost, but apple trees mixed with the 

 above were comparatively all right, except for a few caterpillars, of what I 

 took to be the Winter Moth, on the 24th of May, the trees showing every 

 sign of a plentiful crop of apples, I may say in the last week of April 

 and the first week in May we syringed twice with Paris green (1 in 200). 

 When I returned home on the 7th of June my apple trees and some of 

 the plum presented an appearance as if a hot blast of air had passed over 

 the whole garden, withering all shoots, leaves, and flowers ; the few leaves 

 left were all riddled with holes, leaving only the ribs of the leaf, I could 

 find no insects then or since except a few green caterpillars, I am quite 

 at a loss to know the cause of this wholesale destruction. I should be 

 glad to have a reply from you on the subject, and you would be con- 

 ferring on the district a great boon if you would suggest a remedy, 

 I firmly believe if we had kept dressing the trees with the solution 

 mentioned until the apple blossom had gone we should have had a crop. 



