BIRCH SAW-FLIES. 509 



Larva. — Head small, pointed ia front, half as wide as the body, jet black. Body- 

 tapering a little from the prothoracic segment, slightly flattened ; prothoracic seg- 

 ment large, nearly as long as wide, with a dark central patch ; the second segment 

 slightly larger than the third. Body white, with spare whitish hairs. Three pairs 

 of dusky legs, short, and extended out laterally. Length, 4"™. 



80. Hylotoma dulciaria Say. 

 Order Hymenoptera ; family Tenthredinid^. 



Rev. T. W. Fyles found the larvae of this species to be injurious to 

 the birches in the vicinit;^ of Quebec during the autumns of 1885 and 

 1886. The i)erfect insects which he bred from the larvae appeared in 

 July, but they probably lay their eggs in August, as it was not until 

 that month that he found the saw-flies in their natural haunts, when 

 they were so numerous as to be " trodden under foot by the passers-by"" 

 (Can. Ent., Feb., 1886, Mar., 1887). 



Imago. — Pale rufous; head, wings, and feet violaceous black. Female: antennae 

 black, with a violaceous tinge; nasus emarginate, short ; head, a spot on pectus and 

 ovipositor-sheaths blue-black; rest of the body testaceous or yellowish red; legs 

 steel blue; spines of the same color; wings, violaceous, subhyaline, less obscure at 

 apex, a larger darker spot below the stigma covering the marginal and the upper half 

 of all the submarginal cells; hind wings with but one middle cell. Wings expand 

 about one inch. (Say.) 



81. Nematus sp. 



Order Hymenoptkra; family Texthredinid^. 



This feeds upon the leaves late in September at Providence. It is 

 a large saw-fly larva of the following appearance : 



Larva. — Head black, body pale yellowish green with two subdorsal rows of eleven 

 large black spots. Tip of body also black, two la teral rows of black spots, the lower 

 one the smaller. Length 22"'". 



82. Selandria sp. 



I have found the larva described below feeding on the leaves of the 

 poplar-leafed birch in August and September at Brunswick, Me. 



Larva. — Body flattened ; lateral ridge very large and prominent, spreading out on 

 the sides, the edges scalloped. Head honey-yellow, with two large patches behind 

 on the vertex: eyes and jaws black. Body pale honey-yellow, with a di rsal green 

 patch on the thoracic segments. Length 10™™. 



83. Nematus ? sp. 



(Larva, PI. IV, fig. 11.) 



The gregarious larva of this unknown saw-fly occurs in abundance on 

 the white birch at Brunswick, Me., in August. As yet I have been 

 unable to rear it, though one spun a cocoon September 2. The body is 

 yellowish, with five or six rows of large conspicuous black spots. 



The following notes on the beetles found living on the leaves of the 

 birch are taken bodily from Mrs. Dimmock's " Insects of Betula in 

 North America," published in Psyche, iv, pp. 283-285. It should be 



