HYMENOPTERA. TEREBRANTIA. 



]61 SIT7 



fested by species of the Sawfly, and the larvae, though 

 most commonly feeding on the leaves or stems of plants, 

 as, for example, on the stalks of wheat, have been found 

 inside young fruits, as by Reaumur in pears and by Mr. 

 Westwood in apples. 



And now, what do these little creatures contribute 

 towards the justification of the boast with which this 

 chapter commences ? They are distinguished by no 

 remarkable display of instinct, nor, at least in England,* 

 by much variety of habit, and the architecture of such 

 species as construct any kind of nest at all is of a very 

 simple character. It is then to their structure that we 

 turn in our search for some matter of especial interest. 



Here we find, in the instrument from which the Saw- 

 fly derives its name, one of the most beautiful of all the 

 contrivances that have been observed for the placing of 

 the eggs of insects an 

 instrument from which (if 

 the chronology of Arts 

 and Sciences would allow 

 us to believe that optics 

 had ever been in advance 



of mechanics.) we might 



Single Blade of Saw of Cimbex. 

 suppose that man had 



borrowed not the idea only, but the perfect pattern of 

 the Saw. 



* There is in the " Zoologist" (609) a curious account, by John Curtis, 

 Esq., of the proceedings of the gregarious larvae of a Tenthredo iu Brazil, 

 and which scarcely yields in interest to the well-known histories of the 

 concerted architectural labours of Bees, Ants, &c. There is one remark- 

 able variation, however, in this case namely, that while the chambered 

 palaces of the Bees, Wasps, and Ants are nurseries built by the perfect 

 insect for the rearing of the young, the edifice of the Tenthredo is less a 

 palace than a tomb, being built by the lorvce for their reception duriug the 

 sleep which precedes the last metamorphosis. 



M 



