364 The Rose Garden. 



its way through the dried surface of the leaf, and having found a place of safety forms its 

 cocoon and changes to a chrysalis, from which in due course the moth emerges. The name 

 of this species is Microsetia centifoliella. The moth is very minute in size, and to the naked 

 eye its colour is almost indistinguishable, but under a microscope it will be found to consist of 

 such glorious hues as to defy description. Green, gold, and purple, all struggling for the 

 mastery, present one of those brilliant and exquisite pictures for which this class of small 

 moths is so much admired. 



With this, the smallest of the group, we conclude our remarks upon LEPIDOPTEROUS insects 

 and amongst those of the great order DIPTEBA we do not remember any that prey upon the 

 Rose. In the HYMENOPTEBA, however, we shall find several, and amongst them some of the 

 most troublesome and destructive. Such, then, as we have to deal with are included under the 

 three classes of Saw Flies, Gall Flies, and Bees, and it is with the first of them, as being the 

 most important, that we will commence. 



In this neighbourhood one of the most troublesome is Tenthredo agilis, of which Fig. 79 is an 

 illustration life size. The caterpillar is of a dull bluish green, shading to a paler hue 

 at the sides, with a clearly distinguishable pale line down the back. Head yellowish 

 white, with three black spots on the face arranged triangularly. It appears to prefer 

 the leaves of the Rose, but we have caught specimens in the full blown flowers and Fig. 79 . 

 under such circumstances as to lead us to suppose that they prey upon them also. When full 

 fed the larva is half-an-inch long ; when not engaged in eating its favourite position is the 

 under side of the leaf, where it rests curled up ; but when feeding it clings to the edge of the 

 leaf, sometimes fully extended, at others keeping the head and front part of the body attached 

 to the edge of the leaf by the front or true legs, and keeping the hinder part of the body curled 

 up and completely hidden underneath the leaf. It does not appear to be tenacious in holding 

 on to the leaf, and when disturbed drops quickly to the ground, rolling in a ring. When full 

 fed it descends into the ground, where it forms a cocoon of earth, in which it changes to a pupa. 

 The perfect fly is small and slender ; it has the wings transparent and nearly half-an-inch in 

 expanse from tip to tip, possessing those beautiful iridescent gleams of rainbow colours which 

 are to be observed in the wings of all Saw Flies. The antennae, head, thorax, and body are 

 shining black, the body with a transverse bar of white or whitish yellow. The legs have the 

 first joint black, the two remaining ones yellowish brown. This species is double-brooded, but 

 the seasons of the appearance of the larvae seem so to merge into one another that they may be 

 taken almost withoiit cessation from the end of June till the autumn. The flies from the first 

 brood emerge from the pupa about a month after it has assumed that state ; the second brood 

 pass the winter under ground as pupae. The fly may therefore be looked for in spring, and 

 again late in summer and early in autumn. 



A less common but certainly more treacherous enemy is to be found in the larva of another 

 saw-fly, Tenthredo cincta. The whole economy of this insect is so curious and interesting as to 

 be well worth attention. The female fly, by means of the saw-like appendage with which 

 nature has provided her, and from the presence of which in every species the family has taken 

 its name, forms a large single groove in the stem of the young shoots of the plant, laying therein 

 a number of eggs varying from twelve to twenty. These are arranged in pairs, forming two 

 straight lines parallel to the sides of the branch. The eggs, however, though thus deposited 

 in a common groove are carefully kept each in its place, for a ridge of the wood is left to 

 prevent those on the right from touching those on the left ; and not only so, but between each 

 egg in the row a thin partition is left, forming a shallow cell. The edges of this groove, it will 

 be obvious, must be further apart than those which only contain one egg, and in fact the 

 whole is open to inspection ; but 'the eggs are kept from falling out by a frothy glue deposited 

 by the parent fly at the time of oviposition and by the walls of the cells containing them. It 



