all 
( “cusagi- ») 
for the implement its popular name, probably never really act 
as saw-teeth, and are sometimes only tooth-like in the lateral 
view (foreshortened !). There is splitting, rasping, and general 
lacerating of tissues by the passage through them of the 
entire instrument; and (generally not wpon the so-called 
teeth but rather between them) there are certain extremely 
minute denticulations (without, however, any “ set”) which 
no doubt do the finer parts of the work—that which I called 
just now the carving. But a “real” saw—tenon saw or 
otherwise—and much more an “ideal” saw—the Sawfly’s 
“saw” is not! 
Réaumur’s once-famous “ Mémoire ” on this subject appeared 
in 1740, and to it, as has been said already, may be traced 
practically everything that has been written in this country, as 
to the manner of employment of the so-called Saws. But he was 
not the first who witnessed and thoroughly investigated the 
phenomenon. An Italian physician had put on record some 
years before a set of observations upon it, in some ways 
hardly inferior to Réaumur’s own. The real discoverer of the 
Sawfly and its Saw I believe to have been Vallisnieri, who 
published at Padua in 1726 a paper which appears to me in 
many ways a most remarkable production. Réaumur acknow- 
ledges in the most candid and generous fashion his obligations 
to Vallisnieri ; and any one who compares the observations (and 
still more the plates which illustrate them) of the two authors, 
will see that these obligations must have been very real. I 
am glad to have an opportunity for mentioning with respect 
a most original and thoughtful naturalist, whose services to 
science in general and to Entomology in particular seem to 
be almost universally and very undeservedly forgotten. 
In fact, except as the eponym of a genus in Botany, few of 
us, I suppose, have ever heard of him at all. His works are 
now hardly to be procured; though (thanks to Mr. Janson 
and Dr. Gestro) I have at last obtained a copy of his treatise 
on our present subject, and am able to reproduce herewith its 
curious and interesting illustrations on a smaller scale. There 
is a copy also in the British Museum Library at Bloomsbury 
(but not at South Kensington), and another—a reprint with- 
out the illustrations—in the Linnean Society’s Library. 
