360 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



bore, it was less disagreeable, less costly, and perfectly safe. 

 The method of using it is to sprinkle it over the vines as soon 

 as the worm makes its appearance, bringing it well in contact 

 with the leaves, and soon the insect is destroyed. It will need 

 but two or three applications, and the work is done." 



This worm attacks the gooseberry as well as the currant, 

 though in Massachusetts its ravages have been more confined to 

 the latter shrub. As a preventative measure against its farther 

 spread, in buying or transporting gooseberry and currant bushes, 

 Walsh recommends that the roots be carefully cleaned of dirt, 

 so that the cocoons may not be carried from one garden or 

 nursery to another. 



The Native Currant Saiv Fly. As this species may be con- 

 founded with the European saw fly, though belonging to a differ- 

 ent genus (^Pristiphora^, the following brief account of it is 

 extracted from my Guide to the Study of Insects : — 



This saw fly (Fig. 4 a, larva ; b, female, from the " American 



Entomologist": P .<rross- 



ularicE of Walsh) " is a 

 widely diffused species in 

 the Northern and Western 

 States, and injures the cur- 

 rant and gooseberry. The 

 female fly is shining black, 

 while the head is dull yel- 

 low, and the legs are honey-yellow, with the tips of the six tarsi, 

 and sometimes the extreme tips of the hinder tibijB, and of the 

 tarsal joints, pale dusky for a quarter of their length. The wings 

 are partly hyaline, with black veins, a honey-yellow costa, and 

 a dusky stigma, edged with honey-yellow. The male differs a 

 little in having black coxte. Mr. Walsh states that the larva is 

 a pale grass-green worm, half an inch long, with a l)lack head, 

 which becomes green after the last moult, but with a lateral 

 brown stripe meeting with the opposite one on the top of the 

 head, where it is more or less confluent ; and a central brown- 

 black spot on its face. It appears the last of June and early in 

 July, and a second brood in August. They spin their cocoons 

 on the bushes on which they feed, and the fly appears in two or 

 three weeks, the specimens reared by him flying on the 26th of 

 August." This worm may at once be distinguished from the 



Fig. 4. 



