4 
The female in depositing her eggs turns a little to one side, 
unsheaths her delicate saw-like ovipositor, and thrusts it between 
the two cuticles of a leaf, depositing a single egg in each incision. An 
egg is shown about natural size at d, figure 1, and much enlarged at e. 
The egg is of circular outline, much flattened, and measures about 
one-twentieth of an inch in diameter. Hatching begins in from 
ten days to two weeks after the eggs are deposited. 
The larve or slugs are to be found at work as early as the 1st of 
May in the District of Columbia, but their appearance in numbers is 
seldom noticed until the second or third week of that month. Obser- 
vations conducted at Washington, D. C., show that the periods men- 
tioned are subject to considerable variation. In 1905 the first 
sawflies of the new generation appeared June 2. Owing to the 
irregularity of appearance of the parent “ flies,” larve of the first 
generation may be found at work for a period of five or six weeks. 
Feeding takes place chiefly at night, and always on the upper surface 
of the leaves, the lower surface, ribs, and midribs remaining as a 
skeleton (fig. 1, ¢). The leaves are practically always skeletonized, 
not eaten into as in the case of the other two rose slugs, except when 
the larve are nearly grown. During the daytime the larva usually 
rests concealed on the under surface of a leaf (fig. 2, a). 
Sometimes the larvee are so abundant that not a leaf on a bush is 
spared, and the foliage looks as though it had been scorched by fire, 
and eventually drops off. The larvee are stated to be between two 
and three weeks in attaining their growth. They cast their skins 
several times, leaving them fastened to the leaves. After the last 
molting they lose their greenish hue and become opaque yellowish. 
They then descend into the earth to a depth of an inch or more, and 
each constructs for final transformation a somewhat fragile oval cell 
or cocoon coated with particles of earth. Here the insect remains as 
larva until the following spring, when it transforms to pupa shortly 
before issuance in May. 
The species is single-brooded, in which respect 1t resembles many 
other species of sawflies. 
REMEDIES. 
This rose slug and the others which will be discussed are quite 
easily controlled by several different methods. 
Sprinkling with water.—A strong stream of water directed upon 
the plants from different sides by an ordinary garden hose or large 
“Tt is evident from Harris’s account (1. ¢.) that in ascribing two generations 
to this rose slug he must also have had the bristly rose slug under observation. 
Miss M. E. Murtfeldt writes on this head that she has disproved Harris’s state- 
ment “by repeated rearing of the insect under close observation.” (41st Annual 
Rept. State Hort. Soc. Missouri, 1898, p, 288.) 
[Cir. 105] 
