INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 197 



could be drawn out to a considerable length. Sir Jo- 

 seph Banks lately showed me a branch of the same 

 shrub perforated down to the pith by the caterpillar of 

 JEgeria tipuliformis : the diminished size of the fruit 

 points out, he observes, where this enemy has been at 

 work, in Germany, where perhaps this insect is more 

 numerous, it is said to destroy not seldom the larger 

 bushes of the red currant a . The foliage of these fruits 

 often suffers much from the black and white caterpillar 

 of Abraxas grossulariata ; (this was the case last spring at 

 Hull;) but their worst and most destructive enemy, par- 

 ticularly of the gooseberry, is that of a small saw-fly. 

 This larva is of a green colour, shagreened as it were 

 with minute black tubercles, which it loses at its last 

 moult. The fly attaches its eggs in rows to the under- 

 side of the leaves. When first hatched, the little ani- 

 mals feed in society; but having consumed the leaf on 

 which they were born, they separate from each other, 

 and the work of devastation proceeds with such rapidity, 

 that frequently, where many families are produced on 

 the same bush, nothing of the leaves is left but the veins, 

 and all the fruit for that year is spoiled b . 



Upon the leaves of the cherry, which usually succeeds 

 the gooseberry, in common with those of the pear and 

 several other fruit-trees, the slimy larva of another saw- 

 fly ( Tenthredo Cerasi] makes its repast, yet without being^ 



* Wiener Verzeich. 8vo. 29. 



b Fabricius seems to have regarded the saw-fly that feeds upon the 

 sallow (Nematus Caprees), not only as synonymous with that which 

 feeds upon the osier, but also with our little assailant of the goose- 

 berry and currant. Yet it is very evident from Reaumur's account, 

 whose accuracy may be depended upon, that they are all distinct spe- 

 cies. Fabricius's description of the^ agrees with the insect of the 

 gooseberry, but that which he has given of the larva belongs to the 



