120 



THE PRACTICAL ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Noxious Insects upon the farmers, were inflicted, 

 instead, upon the Merchants or upon the Manufac- 

 turers, thousands of dollars would have been long ago 

 voted by Congress to discover some remedy or some 

 palliation of the evil. Why ? Because the ]Mer- 

 chants, as a class, act in one solid body; the Manu- 

 facturers, as a' class, act in one solid body ; while 

 the Farmers of the United States are nothing but a 

 mere rope of sand. It is the old Greek fable of the 

 bundle of sticks, practically translated into modern 

 English for the benefit of "whom it may concern." 

 THE IMPORTED GOOSEBERRY SAWFLY. 

 Unlike the Wheat-niidge, the Gooseberry Saw- 

 fly, whose Natural History 1 am now about to elu- 

 cidate, has already been attacked by an indigenous 

 North American parasite — the Brachypterus {cryp- 

 tus] micropterus of Say. But this parasite is of 

 extreme rarity, as, exclusive of a single specimen 

 bred by myself from the cocoons of this Sawfly, I 

 have only met with two poor solitary specimens in 

 the course of eight years' steady collecting. It is 

 not probable, therefore, that it will efiect much to- 

 wards checking the rapid increase of this insect, 

 though it is certainly possible that other parasites, 

 which I have not as yet detected, may already be 

 in arms against the invader. 



The imported Gooseberry Sawfly (Hematus ven- 

 tricosits, Klug) comes out of the ground soon after 

 the leaves of the gooseberry and currant bushes, 

 upon which it feeds, put forth in the spring. My 

 specimens, reared from cocoons obligingly furnish- 

 ed to me by Dr. Wm. Manlius Smith, of Onondaga 

 County, New York, came out April 21 — 27. The 

 sexes then couple, as usual, and the female pro- 

 ceeds to lay her eggs "along the stems on the un- 

 der side of the leaf," according to Mr. Bigelow, of 

 N. Y. Prom these eggs shortly afterwards hatch 

 out minute green larvae or worms, which at first 

 have many black dots on tlicir backs, but after 

 moulting their skins for the last time are often en- 

 tirely of a grass green color, except the large dark 

 eye-spot on each side of the head found in all larvae 

 belonging to this genus. By this time they are 

 about i of an inch long, and, from their greatly 

 increased size, make their presence readily known 

 by the sudden disappearance of the leaves from the 

 infested bushes. Shortly afterwards, having at- 

 tained a length of fully three quarters of an inch, 

 they burrow underground, generally beneath the 

 infested bushes, and spin there a thin oval cocoon 

 of silk, within which they assume the pupa state. 

 About the last week in June or the first part of 

 July, or occasionally not until the beginning of Au- 

 gust, the winged in.sect bursts forth from the co- 

 coon and emerges to the light of day; when the 

 same process of coupling and laying eggs is repeat- 

 ed. The larvae hatch out from this second laying 

 of eggs as before, feed on the leaves as before, and 

 • go underground as before; but the perfect fly from 

 this second brood does not come out of' the ground 

 till the following spring, when the same old series 

 of phenomena is repeated. My specimens of tlie 

 summer brood of flies, teared from cocoons receiv- 

 ed from Dr. Smith, of N. Y., came out June 26 — 



August 13, and most of them by July 11. Of 

 course there will be some little variation in the 

 time according to the season and the latitude. 



Larva. A pale green worm J inch long, with 

 three rows of black dots placed crossways on the 

 joints of the body and a black head; after the last 

 moult often losing all the black dots, and the head 

 changing from black to green. 



Nearly mature. Length J inch. Pale green, verging 

 on yellow towards the tail. Head black, polished, with 

 numerous short hairs proceeding from minute tubercles. 

 Mouth, except the mandibles, pale green. Joints of the 

 body above with rows of small shining black tubercles 

 placed crossways, and each bearing a hair in the less ma- 

 ture specimens, but in the largest and most mature ones 

 beiiring no hairs at all, except the larger tubercles on the 

 sides. First joint behind the head with a single row of 

 dorsal tubercles; joints 2 and 3 each with a double row, 

 the anterior one curved forwards in the middle in a se- 

 micircle; joints 4 — 12 with a treble row; the anal plate 

 black, polished, and prolonged at each posterior angle in 

 a slender acute thorn, and having, besides the triple row 

 of tubercles before it, a group of six or eight tubercles on 

 each side of and partly before it. A longitudinal row of 

 larger lateral black tubercles ou joints 2 — 12, one on each 

 joint, beneath which there is a geminate black tubercle 

 above each prolog, all these tubercles bearing many 

 hairs. Legs Ijlack, the sutures pale green. Prologs four- 

 teen, pale green, all but the two anal ones with a few mi- 

 nute black dots towards their tip in front. Joints 4 and 11 

 without prologs. 



When mature, the larva, according to Mr. Bigelow, is 

 said to "change its skin to a pale green," as the Europe- 

 an larva does, according to many authors; but I have not 

 seen any specimens in this state. I suspect that in many 

 individuals this change does not take place, and that in 

 these the black tubercles remain throughout in the ma- 

 ture larva, while the hairs proceeding from them disap- 

 pear, as in the largest specimens described above, which 

 were almost an inch long, and still retained the black 

 hairy head found in the smaller specimens, and the black 

 anal plate. Described from thirty or forty specimens of 

 various sizes, well preserved in Mr. Verrill's brine-mix- 

 ture by Dr. Smith, of New York. 



As is very generally the case in the genus Ne- 

 matus, the males and females of this Sawfly diflFer 

 so widely, that they would scarcely he taken by the 

 inexperienced Entomologist for the same species. 

 I subjoin a full description of each, based upon 

 very numerous specimens, all bred by myself. 



Female Fly. A four-winged fly rather larger 

 than a common house-fly, with glassy wings and the 

 body mostly yellow. 



Body bright honey-yellow. Kcad black, with all the 

 parts between and below the origin of the antennsD, 

 except the tip of the mandibles, dull honey-yellow. 

 Antennae brown-black, often tinged with rufous above 

 except towards the base, and beneath entirely dull rufous 

 except the two basal joints: four-fifths as long as the body, 

 joint 3 when viewed laterally, four times as long as wide, 

 joints 3 — 5 equal in length, 6 — 9 very slowly shorter and 

 shorter. In two females the antenne are 10-jointed, joint 

 10 slender and J as long as 9. Thorax with the anterior 

 lobe above, a wide stripe on the disk of each lateral lobe 

 which is very rarely reduced to a mere dot, or very rare- 

 ly the whole of each lateral lobe, a spot at the base and 

 at the tip of the scutel, the two spots sometimes conflu- 

 ent and very rarely subobsolete, a small spot at the outer 

 end of each cenchrus and a geminate small spot trans- 

 versely arranged between the cenchri,the lip of the meta- 

 thoracic scutel, the front and hind edge above of what 

 seems the 1st abdominal joint but is in reality the hind 

 part of tlie metathorax, or very rarely its whole surface 

 above, and also the whole lower surface of tho breast be- 

 tween the front and middle legs, or very rarely two large 

 spots arranged crossways on that surface, all black. 

 Conchri whitish. Abdoinen with joints 1 and 2 very rare- 

 ly edged at tip with black. Sheaths of the ovipositor 



