THE GRUB DESCRIBED. 61 



and paper to describe it here ; yet some of your readers 

 may be glad of a description, so here it is. There is a 

 great difference between the grubs of saw-flies the goose- 

 berry grub is that of a saw-fly and the caterpillars of 

 moths, which your thorough-paced entomologists don't 

 seem to have noticed. The caterpillars of moths and but- 

 terflies have six legs, and ten, six, or four holders, two of 

 which are quite at the end of the body, and are very 

 powerful prehensile organs, excepting and the exception 

 establishes the rule in the caterpillars of puss-moths and 

 their allies, in which the hinder extremity is without these 

 organs, and often elevated in a most remarkable manner. 

 In all the grubs of saw-flies that I have seen, the tail or 

 last segment of the body is either without holders, or the 

 grub does not use them, but just curls its tail on one side 

 and uses it after the fashion of a finger, to steady its hold 

 on the leaf, or else sticks it up in the air, and even then 

 the extreme end is curled round, though holding nothing. 

 The legs are longer than those of real caterpillars, and 

 have more joints. The gooseberry-grub has six legs, and 

 in this all insects that have any legs at all seem to agree, 

 and twelve holders, besides the curled tail : it always 

 stands on the edge of the leaf, generally on the part where 

 it has just been eating : the fore legs are held away from 

 the leaf, and move with each movement of the head in 

 gnawing, as the grub takes mouthful after mouthful. It 

 is amusing to watch one of these fellows feeding ; he 

 stretches his mouth to the farthest point he can possibly 

 reach, and then takes mouthfuls by a series of jerks, till he 

 has brought his mouth nearly in contact with his middle 

 pair of legs, he then moves it slowly back again, and 

 seems to lick or plane the fresh-gnawed edge, till he gets 



