196 



TURNIPS. 



(from whicli apparatus the Sawflies are named) ; and the eggs 

 are very numerous, one female laj'ing from two to three 

 hundred. 



These eggs hatch in about five days, or less in warm weather, 

 hut take more than twice that time if the weather is damp 

 and cold. The grubs begin to feed immediately on coming 

 out of the eggs, and are at first nearly white, but soon become 

 of a greenish white colour, with a black head ; afterwards 

 they become jet-black, with a paler stripe on each side, and 

 whitish head ; and when nearly full-grown they are slate- 

 colour, with black head, and pale beneath, in addition to the 

 pale stripe just mentioned. Before their first change of skin 

 (or moult) they cling to the leaf, and, if disturbed, let them- 

 selves down by a thread and go back again up it at pleasure ; 

 afterwards they fall down, having no power to spin threads at 

 this stage of growth, and remain awhile as if dead, and then 

 crawl back again up the stems to the leaves. 



Sawfly catcrpillai's destroying Turnip-leaf.* 



These caterpillars have in all twenty-two feet, consisting of 

 a pair of " true feet," horny, and furnished with claws on each 

 of the three segments next the head ; a pair of " sucker-feet " 

 (fleshy cylindrical masses by which the caterpillar can hold 



* The above characteristic figure of devastation by " Nigger" caterpillars is 

 acknowledged with thanks as being from the ' Letters of Eusticus ' (by the late 

 Edw. Newman). 



