APPLK SAWFLY, 



On July 11th the Apple Sawfly caterpillars sent me, apparently full 

 grown, length between three-eighths and half an inch, were whitish or 

 creamy in colour, head pale chestnut, eyes black, jaws dark brown in 

 front, plate above tail, and cross band immediately preceding, mottled 

 with grey. Three first segments each with a pair of jointed legs; fourth 

 segment without appendages ; fifth to tenth segments each furnished 

 with a pair of sucker feet somewhat like blunt tubercles, tail segment 

 also furnished with a similar pair, not so noticeable, however, excepting 

 when in the act of walking, the caterpillar or larva thus possessing 

 twenty feet in all. 



In the early stage (that is, in the case of specimens a little more 

 than one-eighth of an inch in length) the head was shining pitchy or 

 black ; the plate above the tail was also shining pitchy or black, and 

 immediately preceded by one cross band of similar colour, and this 

 again by two narrower and shorter streaks, also black or pitchy. The 

 black tail plate and the preceding band sometimes formed one mass. 



The claw legs were darker than in the older specimens ; the abdo- 

 minal sucker feet were difficult to count in these very little specimens, 

 which were somewhat shrank in transmission, but by careful pressure 

 in fluid, and with the help of a two-inch object glass, I was able to 

 expand them so that there appeared no doubt all six pairs were 

 present. 



The small Sawfly caterpillars, black or black-marked at head and 

 tail, and the larger and pale-marked caterpillars, were presumably 

 of the same species ; but I was indebted to. Mr. Coleman for proving 

 the point by direct observation of the pale-marked caterpillar leaving 

 behind it the black-marked skin, and by his favouring me with the 

 following notes. 



A section of a fruit containing a caterpillar, with black head, &c., 

 three-sixteenths of an inch long was placed under a glass. On the 

 following day it had considerably increased in size, still feeding on the 

 fruit (black head, &c., still noticed), and on the next following morning, 

 July 1st, the black head or collar and tail had given place to the pale 

 colour, and the grub had left the fruit and was travelling round the 

 rim of the inverted glass. On examination of the Apple on which the 

 grub had fed, in its successive black-marked and pale-brown-marked 

 conditions, Mr. Coleman noted, " There were, clear enough, the black 

 helmet, tail piece, and skin, shed within the Apple." 



Mr. Coleman observed the grubs in stages of growth from less than 

 one-eighth up to three-eighths of an inch long, always with the same 

 number of feet (thus showing there was no confusion of the little 

 creatures with the caterpillars of the Codlin Moth), and found that the 

 black helmet and tail piece were shed with the skin at a certain period, 

 giving place to the pale brown. Evidence of this was plain by the 



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