APPLE SAWFLY. 



13 



glass jar with Apple blossoms full-blown (a twig of same) and tied over 

 with coarse muslin, a fresh bunch of blossom being introduced as the 

 first withered, and the flies left to work their natural course. The 

 trees most gay with blossom and setting their fruit, were then carefully 

 examined, and the work of the Sawfly was then clearly shown. The 

 deep orange -coloured mark on the embryo Apple, about the size of a 

 small needle's eye, underneath the blossom, or rather the calyx, was its 

 mark left. 



" Returning to the captive's flies, the same work was plainly to be 

 seen; but they having only blossom stalks to operate upon, the embryo 

 Apple being yet unformed, with the same unerring instinct guiding 

 them, had stabbed the stalk just below the calyx. The same day this 

 was actually observed on the tree, — the fly head downwards on the 

 stalk, curling its body, and driving its apparatus into the swelling 

 Apple. 



"In all instances the same point was selected, whether on 

 blossom stalk, or embryo Apple from which the petals of the bloom 

 had fallen, a point underneath the calyx, and what would represent 

 on the upper section of the Apple, about its centre. The flies enter 

 the blossoms for feeding purposes undoubtedly, as with ordinary 

 dexterity they may be captured by pinching up the petals sideways 

 and from underneath, when the head is down in the cap of the 

 blossom. 



" The pupa-state. — As some of the caterpillars were unchanged, 

 though alive and perfectly healthy at the time of the first hatching, it 

 follows as a matter of course that the pupa-state must be a short one, 

 and also that these will hatch after the time of the Apple blossom, and 

 when the young Apple will have swelled considerably, so this will con- 

 firm the foregoing as to operations on the fruit, and not the blossom." 

 — (W. C.) 



With the above notes (sent me on May 19th), Mr. Coleman also 

 forwarded me for examination several live specimens of the Apple 

 Sawflies ; and on the 7th of June he forwarded four more (dead) speci- 

 mens of the flies, or (to speak more technically) of the imago of what 

 proves, on careful examination, to be (as we conjectured would prove 

 to be the case) the Hoplocampa testudinea. 



This species has the body yellow, or reddish-yellow, on the under- 

 side ; a large patch on the top of the head, also the top of the body 

 between the wings, black, shining and very minutely punctured ; the 

 back of the abdomen also black. The shoulders, legs, front and sides 

 of head, and the antennas (or horns), yellowish, some of the middle or 

 lower joints of the antemife being partially marked with brown above. 

 The wings transparent, with veins dark, or darker towards the base, 

 and the stigma (or patch on the front edge of the fore wings), dark, but 



